Green-Eyed Creatures
by ElyzabetShardlake
Summary: Dr. Spencer Reid has not seen his father since he walked out on him when he was nine-years-old. Now a stranger walks into his life with shocking news - she is his sister! And her family has a whole nest of problems, including blackmail, theft and even broaching on murder. [Dramatic music] Will cover elements of 'Paradise' to 'Memoriam'.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters from the show.**

Las Vegas, November 1990

William Reid slipped the old photo he had of Spencer and he at the baseball game back into the side pocket of his wallet. It had been taken just before… the incident, and he'd still been trying to get his boy interested in normal activities. He thought baseball seemed like a good idea. He seemed to like the game, watching the ball fly across the field, using the primary mathematics he'd already learned to see where it would land, and for a time William had thought Spencer might enjoy playing the actual sport. Until another little brat had thrown the ball into Spencer's face. Explaining to Diana how that had happened had not been fun.

He'd spent so many hours trying to connect with Spencer. Always his mother's son, his boy seemed just to be unreachable. He'd been so proud of his genius wife and genius son until he realised that they could communicate on a level he would just never understand. They didn't see the world like he did, and as he grew further apart from Diana after that night, he grew further apart from Spencer. Every time he failed Diana, he failed Spencer. Then he walked out, seven months ago, and he had never gone back.

He had definitely failed them when he'd left them. There was no turning back after that. But he just couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take care of Diana, of Spencer and he couldn't stand the guilt of watching his greatest failure unfold before him. His wife was right, he was a coward, and pathetic, and full of self-fucking-pity. He had considered taking Spencer with him. More than anything he dreamed he might have been able to continue a life with Spencer, even if he couldn't live with Diana anymore. But Diana begged him to take him he knew she needed him. At least that's what he told himself when he imagined Spencer looking after Diana.

"Do you want another refill, Will?" Gary asked. He was one of his old neighbours he used to be close to, when he was still close to Lou Jenkins. Even after he'd left Diana, he still managed to remain a regular at Gary's campus bar.

"Sure, thank-you."

"Ooo, scotch! I'll take one too please!" a perky little voice butted in next to him. "And a tall glass of water."

"Sure thing, Ma'am," Gary shot her a smirk. William heard the flirtatious tone in her voice and resisted the urge to shake his head and laugh. Gary did always attract the ladies.

"Excuse me, _sir_ , my mother is 'Ma'am," she smirked. "Long day at the office?"

It took William a couple of seconds to realise the question was directed at him when Gary started smirking in his direction. He shook his head with stupidity. There was no one else at the bar in a suit with a massive paperwork briefing in front of them after all.

Turning to the girl, he replied, "Believe it or not, this is light."

"You and I have different definitions of the word 'light'. What are you doing working on that anyway? Shouldn't you be watching the game up there?" she gestured lightly towards the big screen TV where the 51s were hitting the ball out of the park. William smiled, knowing Spencer could probably predict to the millimetre where the next swing would land as soon as the ball was swung.

"I didn't even know they were playing tonight," he murmured, smiling as his team made a home run. "You a fan, too."

"Red Sox, home team, through and through," she smiled, sweetly. Behind her, a group of boys taking shots made a cheer for their home team. Lowering her voice, she leaned in with a teasing glint in her eye. "But don't tell anyone here. I might be shot."

"Your secret is safe with me," he smiled back. She'd leaned in so close he could smell her perfume –sweet roses – and now he could also see her eyes more clearly in the low light. They were a deep, dark blue, flecked with grey, with a clarity that startled him, glowing with the intemperance and endeavour of youth. When she brushed her hand up against his forearm, quite deliberately tracing her fingernails along the skin below his wristwatch, he realised why Gary had seemed so disinterested in the "tall glass of water" comment. "So, um, Red Sox… Boston native?"

"When I want to be. At the moment I'm enjoying being a Las Vegas girl," she had raised her eyes a little when he stammered, probably taking it as encouragement when he didn't withdraw. When he swallowed, she smiled, clearly enjoying making him nervous. "I'm finding I get very lucky in the casinos. They like to think they're taking advantage of the innocent, little college girl, but my poker face is way too good for them."

"Ah, so, you're good at… poker?"

"I'm a master," she purred. She reached behind her, picking up their scotch's that Gary had quietly set down beside them. Bringing one to her lips, she smacked them together, moving away.

Catching Gary's eye over her shoulder, William shifted in his seat so he was more comfortable, and raised his glass to toast with her. "Gary, can you put the young lady's drink on my tab, please?" Gary responded with a quick thumbs up, before moving back down the bar. "And do I get to know your name, or are we going to remain anonymous?"

"Saphya," she smiled. When he raised his eyebrows, she rolled her eyes and smiled. "It's my nickname. My Christian name is Sapphire and my mother is Russian."

"I like it. It's much more interesting than mine. I'm just plain old William."

"William a great name. It's a name of kings," she laughed. "But thank you. Most guys tell me Sapphire sounds like a stripper name."

"Then those men are idiots," William smiled at her. From the corner of his eye, he saw the papers he had been reading disappear and his briefcase slide off the bar. He didn't need to look up to know that Gary was tucking them away for him. The movement jogged his memory of a particular present a very happy client had passed onto him a couple of weeks ago that he had had no intention of using until now. "Saphya have you ever been to _The Galaxy Lounge_?"

"Only in my dreams."

"I was hoping you'd say that. You see, I happen to currently be in possession of a V.I.P ticket for two. We could finish watching the game here, and move over to take our chances at the tables if you like."

"That sounds amazing," she grinned, happily, caught off her guard for the moment. "oh my god, how did you get that?"

"A very generous client with very good connections," he smiled, enjoying her smile growing wider and wider. It livened the eyes and sparkled the flecks of silver within them. Stretching his hand over the counter, he settled his fingers along her long, bony hands, smooth and perfectly manicured. With a genuine smile, she overturned her hand and weaved her fingers through his. After that moment, he did not think of Diana or Spencer again until the next morning.

A few days later, in the mountainous regions of Vermont where the sportsmen and women often gravitated to enjoy their winter holidays, Quentin Wilmot was navigating his car through one of the worst snowstorms to hit the north-eastern states for decades. It was impossible to avoid, of course. It had only hit him once he was half the way up the mountain, so he saw little point in turning back.

Outside, the piles of snow resting on the rocks were reaching higher than the average man. Whipped and peaked in the heavy wind, they threatened to loom and crush him, like a million tidal waves broken only by the sharp digs the road had hammered into the incline. His wipers were furiously batting at the thick balls of snow that threatened frost up his windscreen. Beyond a few meters, the entire world was invisible, like it had been swallowed by this chasm that had fallen with the storm. He needed to pace himself at a meter thirty mph if he was going to make it through this journey alive.

Beside him were his daughter's birthday presents, piled high on the seat. His mother had been so unexpectedly generous for Lillian again, as had Edward and Ekaterina, and Emmet and Shirley. Even Saphya, Elsa, Sally, Dinah, Wesley and James had sent little something's in the mail for their cousin. It was good to know that the Wilcot's had produced some decent brood in their most recent generation. Even if the rest of them remained as ignorant as his remaining siblings.

While Quentin pondered this, the curve of the road to bring him around the crag came into his view, courtesy of a powerful streetlight. Taking his car down a gear for the turn, he cast his eyes up for a moment, checking for other headlights, before moving a little further into the road so the turn would be less wide. As the car was just leaning upward, a series of thunders clapped over his head like an applause, muted slightly a sudden howl of the storm. The gearstick started to vibrate beneath his hand, suddenly jolting him into pilot mode, where his brain automatically though 'stall warning'. Then his seat, wheel and dashboard started to thrum quite violently as well, as the thunder gradually grew louder and faster, almost like a roar. Then it cracked wickedly, snapping at him. Curiosity tempted him to stop the car, but pilot instincts commanded that he slam his foot on the accelerator.

Quentin Wilcot didn't make any mistakes that night. In fact, had everything happened a few seconds slower he might not have been caught by the brunt of the avalanche. He would have been buried, battered and bruised, of course, by the surrounding snow and rocks, but it was the tree that caught him broadside. As one, the batter of snow, tree and boulder knocked him off the road and down two hundred meters into a crack running all the way up the mountain ridge.

 **I hope people got the euphemisms I was trying to do in the scene between William and Saphya. I'm terrible at flirtation scenes.**


	2. Chapter 2 Part 1

**I do not own Criminal Minds.**

Quantico, Thursday 19th June 2008

As the jet came to a stop in the hanger at Quantico, Reid could hear the heaven's orchestra drumming a symphony on the roof. It had not relented for the entire flight, bitterly venting its fury on the plane. A few times, the entire body of the plane had shuddered with the force of the winds, jumping everyone except Reid, who proceeded to reassure his team with statistics on the percentage of plane crashes caused by adverse weather conditions in contrast to mechanical and pilot errors. Nobody was particularly reassured.

Afterward, Reid had pulled out his Tolstoy and quietly listened to Morgan and Prentiss compare their 'lists of things never to do'. Apparently, as well as motels, the pair of them included CIA, hunting and 'Hall of Mirror' rides. Prentiss had known enough not to ask about the CIA, nor did it seem, she want to know about where Morgan's aversion to the Hall of Mirrors came from.

Across the plane, Rossi had been having a rather pleasant conversation with someone, flirting shamelessly with whoever was at the other end of the line. JJ had been nibbling on her latest craving, peanut butter and blackberry jelly sandwiches, which everyone else thought was disgusting. Even Hotch – who usually presented a great poker face and had undergone several insane cravings of Haley's while she was pregnant with Jack – had found it hard to suffer the smell next to her.

"Good news, everyone," Rossi spoke up brightly as the engines whined down. "I just spoke to Erin and she has guaranteed us our weekends as long as we finish all out paperwork _today_."

"That'll be easy, just give them all to Reid," Morgan teased, shooting a wink. Reid gave an exaggerated laugh, knowing full well he would complete their case work either way.

"We should have a night out tomorrow," Prentiss grinned, stretching from her seat. "Just us, drinks, club, dancing… usual place..."

"Sounds like fun," Morgan agreed, with similar acknowledgements from Rossi and Reid.

"I won't be able to. I have Jack tomorrow. Star Wars marathon night," Hotch smiled fondly at the prospect. The team knew he had not been able to see Jack last weekend since they had been in Ohio, so he and Haley had agreed he could take Jack a night earlier this Friday night.

"I thought you'd be eager to catch up on that date with the hot tub, Emily," JJ teased.

"Two words, JJ. Spa day. I have been waiting for this opportunity for weeks. Guaranteed uninterrupted mud bath. Wanna join?"

"God, yes," JJ laughed back, smiling broadly. "We can make it a girl's day if we call Garcia."

While the girls began to organise their safe haven, Morgan and Reid hoped off the plane and started to head back towards their cars together. Slinging an arm around his best friend, Morgan gave him a cheesy grin. "So kid, what are you planning to do with your weekend? I heard there's a sci-fi convention coming up."

"That's actually next weekend. I've been working on my Tree of Cheem costume for months. Garcia wants me to wear full face make-up, but it's really uncomfortable."

"Whatever you say, Pretty Boy. So do you wanna go see a film at the cinema on Saturday, then?"

"Sounds great. You know there are re-runs of _Metropolis_ showing right now. It's one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, and was a landmark movement in German expressionism in the 1920's and one of greatest movies of the silent era. Because it was so controversial at the time, they cut a lot of scenes from the initial tape, yet it still one of the most interesting…"

"Reid, Reid, I get it. But I was thinking more along the lines of _Iron Man_ or _Get Smart_ ," Morgan laughed, ruffling his hair. "I'm sure you'll find someone to go with you to see _Metropolis_ , but not me on my first weekend off this month. Come on, let's go get dinner and get ourselves home."


	3. Chapter 2 Part 2

**I do not own Criminal Minds.**

Las Vegas, Friday 20th June 2008

Although summer did not usually disrupt Roxie Reid's solid work ethic, this heat wave was tempting her to make an exception. Everyone else in the classroom was either drooling on their desks, daydreaming out the window or tossing notes across the classroom. The heat smothered the room, pressurising like a storm cloud, the students beading heavier and heavier as the clocks ticked by mercilessly slow.

Currently, she was trying to copy down all her notes on _To Kill a Mockingbird_ by the time the bell rang so she would have less to do over the weekend. Exams had been over two weeks ago, and ever since her teachers had been relentless in rewarding their students with even more in-depth study of their subjects.

As she was just beginning her notes on Chapter Two, a small paper missile struck her from behind. It didn't hurt her, but what firmly irritated her was the titter of sniggers from the little snobs behind her. She knew where they came from. Just because Papa worked for Dolly McKinley's father, all her many followers had decided Roxie should to. When she refused to put up with them dumping their homework on her all the time, she had simply handed in empty sheets and booklets.

It had seemed like the sensible thing to do until the bitch started circulating rumours that she was the one who snitched on half the football team who skived out the back door during the mayor's visit, earing them all a suspension. She was half-convinced McKinley had snitched on them herself to get her in trouble and revenge on her ex. Ever since half the school had been giving her bloody hell.

When she refused to dignify McKinley's spite with a response, another missile landed on the back of her head. This time, it rolled over her shoulder and landed in the middle of her work. Very deliberately, she took it by a corner, pocking out from the little paper ball, and dropped it over the side of her desk, ignoring the snickers behind her. When a few more continued to batter her, she tuned them out.

When the bell rang, the storm clouds building inside the classrooms burst out into the hallway, spilling out of the school. Whilst everyone else left, Roxie waited behind to cram her books into her bag so her notes wouldn't be crushed. It always took her a while to fold them all as neatly as she could, which was usually why she and her friends were the last people to leave. These days, though, considering the number of people who liked to trod on her foot and shove her shoulders were as numerous as the number of sports fans, she preferred to walk after everyone else had gone.

"Enjoy _The Mockingbird_ , Roxie?" Marcella smiled, stepping up beside her. "Didn't you say it was your favourite book?"

"Yeah, Papa used to read it to me as a kid," Roxie grinned. "He thought it was an excellent way to instil law and justice into us, through good reading."

"And he started you off on a rape trial and lynching? What was wrong with _Secret Seven_."

"I loved it. Apparently Dickens used to just make me cry. Harper Lee was the only thing that could get me settled when I was a baby."

"He read it to you when you were a baby? Was he trying to traumatise you?"

"I understood it rather well, actually. Papa said I used to smile at the ending and frown at the trial bits."

"Does your dad really believe babies can understand what adults are saying?"

"I don't know. Apparently someone told him that there are studies that prove children can understand language through tone and he just spent every night reading me classics. And now I hate him for it," Roxie winked at Marcella, who laughed. Both of them knew Roxie's bible was her collection of Russian classics.

"People don't hate you that much for being a nerd. They hate you for McKinley's bullshit."

"Keep on believing that and you can dream you're actually popular."

"They're just jealous!"

"Oh yeah! They're so jealous of me and my toilet-class reputation," Roxie scoffed, but smiled at Marcella for attempting to lighten the mood. In an entirely friendly way, she was jealous of her best friend and her ability to case sunshine on everything. Unlike Roxie with her flat brown hair, square glasses an pale skin, Marcella was platinum blonde with baby blues and brains equally as refined and brilliant as Roxie's. She was charming and sociable, without Roxie's inherent clumsiness, and could probably have kicked McKinley right off her perch if she so pleased with the dirt she could have hacked from her computer. But she was as honourable an enemy as she was a friend, so simply stood by her friend whilst most of the school bullied her.

Outside, the rest of their friendship group – Paul, Cooper and Darry – waited to help escort Roxie back home. At first it had seemed like a necessity, but after a while it had become a nice tradition. They'd stop off for bubble gum at the sweet shop, swing on the rope underneath the park oak, before throwing what was left of their lunch off a bridge to the ducks. Unfortunately, they had to skip all that today to get Roxie home by four.

"Why are you going to this stupid party if you hate everyone so much," Paul asked her for the umpteenth time.

"I don't hate everyone. Just everyone who isn't Prababushka, Babushka, Dedushka, Aunt Ruby's bunch, Great-Uncle Quentin's family," Roxie replied with a mask of haughty logic, which faltered at everyone's disbelieving look. "Ok, I hate pretty much everyone. But its Prababushka's birthday and I'm not missing it. We who are the decent brood must protect her against the vipers. I honestly don't know how such a crapload of pariahs came from such a lovely woman."

"You know for someone who prides herself on worshipping the classics, you have a very poor appreciation for the English language when you say "crapload" and "little shits"," Darry sniggered with mocking formality.

"You've clearly never read Baldwin and Ginsberg," Roxie shot back. "But it's not like you guys can judge me. Paul you complained all last year about the Christmas you spent with your grandparents that, and I quote, 'suffer from a serious condition of sour milk breath'."

"Yeah but at least they are nice. I've seen the way some of those cousins look at you, Roxie. Like they want to kill you."

"Ah the downside of being Prababushka's favourite. They think the 'little Russian slut and her spawn' are going to get all the family money."

"Will you?" Marcella asked.

"No. Prababushka may have personal favourites, but she wouldn't let that affect her opinions on fair division of assets between the family without good reason. The fact that they don't believe actually just reinforces the fact that they really don't know her very well…"

"Ok," Darry butted in again. "I know I'm going to regret this on some level. Why do you call her Prababushka instead of Great-Grandma? You're not even speaking Russian."

"'Prababushka' more beautiful than 'Great-Grandma'," Roxie lightly snapped. "You know, if you fools would learn Russian I could speak it much more often."

"But you don't even speak it at home!" Paul began laughing with Roxie, bringing a smile to her face.

"Because Papa doesn't know it! And for some reason Mama and the others prefer speaking English!"

"Because they're normal…"

"Oh what's the fun in being normal," Marcella laughed. "Nobody wants to be normal when they grow up, they wanna be different and exciting. Its how we get into college, get jobs, meet new people… Who the fuck wants to be normal?"

"I'd really like to be normal actually," Roxie sniggered, then groaned as her house came into view. Already she could see her mother packing their cases into the car, whilst simultaneously piling her brother's outdoor toys and bicycle into the garage and yelling at her sister when she came out wearing her pyjama trousers. "I should probably start mediating a Truce before Mama starts killing Annabella. And I promise Papa that wouldn't happen until after this weekend."

"Yeah, go and practice for your future appointment as the UN Peace Ambassador," Cooper snorted. "Meanwhile, I'll head home and practice my future career a casino tycoon."

"Oh yeah, its your Poker Club tonight," Roxie grinned, leaving them behind on the corner as she began walking up the street. "Good luck taking money from your friends and keeping them after."

"It's all in good humour. We only bet chocolate now."

"Don't tempt me. I can't afford the calories!"

"Tha… hey, wait… is that a challenge Roxie?"

"Statement of fact, Cooper!"

"Bring it on! Game! Monday! Lunchtime!"

"I look forward to the candy!" Roxie managed to get one last shot in before they fell out of earshot, enjoying the echoes of their laughter as they disappeared back down the street. They hadn't run into any trouble on the way back home like they had before – maybe it was time to start thinking about not wasting her friend's time anymore by asking them to walk her home. It didn't make sense for them to make this a habit – Cooper and Marcella lived all the way across town.

"Annabella, you cannot get on a plane wearing a teal polo shirt and pink teddy bears! Now go get changed!"

"You said wear something comfortable for the flight, so I don't complain about being uncomfortable! This is what I wear when I am comfortable!"

"Don't be so difficult! Go wear that nice dress Great-Gram got you for Christmas!"

"It's in the wash!"

"I put it on your bed this morning! Now go get changed! No Sacha don't get your football out again!" Saphya snapped at her nine-year-old son, who promptly dropped his ball and ran inside the house. Realising she may have overreacted, Saphya turned away and caught sight of Roxie walking up the drive. "Roxie, how long does it take you to get home from school? What did you do to your shirt?"

"Spilled something at lunch," she replied quickly. "Where's Papa?"

"He's not home yet," she snarled, whipping her lilac-streaked blonde hair over her shoulder. "He better be in a grave to be this late! Well, go and get changed so we can leave when he gets back!"

"Yes, Mama," Roxie replied with resignation, dragging Annabella with her before she and Mama could start firing off again. They found Sacha crouching in front of the TV bouncing a soft baseball in his hand. Rubbing his soft bushel of straw-coloured hair for his comfort, she turned to Annabella with a deprecating smirk. "Just go get changed."

"I don't wanna go to Great-Gram's stupid birthday. I wanna go to Bailey's sleepover." Roxie sighed heavily. Sometimes she wondered how Annabella and Sacha could possibly be twins – she could moan better than a class of five-year-olds sitting down to broccoli, whereas Sacha, like Roxie, would suffer in silence till the end of his days.

"Great-Gram only has one birthday every year. And she might not have many left," Roxie smoothed her sister's bouncy curls, meeting her steady fire calmly until her word had their tempered effect. "Now, she bought you that lovely pink dress because she thought you'd like it, because it was your favourite colour, and you'd look really pretty in it. And I know you like it too."

Annabella didn't really say much for the next few minuets. She just stood there, swaying, like a dozy leaf hanging off an autumn branch. "I don't wanna go. Eileen's really mean."

Urgh, Eileen… Rosemary's mirror-image daughter, who was Mama's most hated cousin for a reason. Simply put: blue-blood bitch training daughter to inherit that status. "Just don't take any notice of her. Play with Sylvia, she's nice."

"Sylvia doesn't speak."

"That's because she's shy. You have be patient with her. Now go change before Papa gets home." Though she moaned under her breath as loudly as she possibly could, when Annabella disappeared up the stairs to change, Roxie considered it a personal victory. Turning to drop a kiss on Sacha's head, she asked him, "Where's Nikki?"

"He's in the car playing his game. He wouldn't let me play."

"Honey, we all know you didn't mean to break your brother's play station, but he doesn't see it like that. Just give him some time and he'll let you play with his Gameboy again."

"Yeah," he moaned. Outside, she heard a car pull into the driveway and Mama begin shouting again.

"William, where the hell have you been? … I don't care about the traffic on the '95 road, you should have left earlier … well you should have rescheduled … do I look like I wanna argue? Go get changed!"

Roxie smirked as Mama grew even more irrational. The ire seemed to have gone from her voice when she had been shouting at Annabella. Unfortunately, Papa's inner-lawyer prevented him from backing down when was wise. When he stumbled into the house, dropping about ten files and a briefcase on the side, stopping only to kiss his children hello. "Go to the car before your Mama kills us all."

'Yes, Papa. Come on Sacha. Where are your shoes?"

"Mama put them in the garage under my football," he mumbled quietly. Smirking with exasperation, Roxie sent him out to the car whilst she went to get his shoes.

Boston

"Lewis, we need to leave if we're going to arrive in time for dinner tonight!" Barbara called from the kitchen. "I want to speak with Wesley about some of the funds we organised for the ballet school fundraiser last month. He says they didn't go through."

"Yes dear, I'm just coming," he called out, trying to dig the strain in his voice away. His fingers were viciously scribbling across his private account book he never let her see, but the sums, either way, wouldn't get any better. He always tried to make sure the jewellery and clothes she'd bought using her cards connected to the trust fund didn't bounce back so she wouldn't notice their problem. If payments to the family faltered a little, that was ok. He could default to their joint account within a couple of days while blood ties smoothed the stormy tide. Yet her growing interest in family affairs did not help his problem.

Neither though, did his gambling. With the payments he had to draw out of the trust to pay off de Roca, he and Barbara were barely gonna have enough money in their account to pay off their bills and mortgage this month. Without her knowing, she was supporting them both – half of his salary was paying off the rest of his debts to Joel Sinclair.

Now Barbara wanted to start having children and buy a bigger house! She had bought his Grandmother another first edition of Victor Hugo for her birthday. It would help when it came to his asking her for some money in a short time after this weekend was over, but for now it would just add onto the debts they were about to owe their energy providers. If push came to shove, he could tap into the neighbours supply again.

"Lewis!"

"Barbara, please don't rush me. I'm coming!" he snapped, then immediately regretted it when he imagined her face falling. He'd been doing that far too much recently. He really had to stop. Maybe if he took some anger management it would help. Breathing techniques and mental exercises to give him some better measure of control. It had worked before, the last time he was stressed and he got through that point all right in the end. All he had to do was just keep calm again, and he would think of something.

 **Here are the Russian translations for Roxie's addressing of her family:**

 **Prababushka - Great-Grandma**

 **Babushka - Grandma**

 **Dedushka - Grandpa**


	4. Chapter 3 Part 1

**I don't own Criminal Minds or the characters for the show.**

"Please! Please, I'm sorry! I won't do it again! I'm sorry!" The girl's scream ran around the room like a siren exploding. She wasn't supposed to scream that loud.

"Shut up!" Seizing her hair was an ugly experience: it was polluted in grease and filth. Some people were no better than animals these days. When the girls head hit the floor, it crumbled with a crack that resembled Father's handgun. With a curious foot, the girl was turned over. "Urgh, come on!" She was already dead. How disappointing. She hadn't even lasted the whole month, only a few days. Maybe visiting every couple of days was wearing them down too fast. Maybe giving them more time to recover would make them last longer. Next time, coming back every four days would probably more prudent, and arouse less suspicion with the others.

That was for later. Now the problem of this little bitch had to be dealt with and that wouldn't be possible until Cecilia's birthday party was done. Sure everyone would be out of the house, but being missed from that party was not an option. People loved people who patted their elderly relatives on the head, brought them pretty cashmere jumpers and kissed them on the cheek, but they didn't like doing it themselves. It was so tedious. But better to be loved than hated. It was always the hated after all that got the first calls from the police should her collection ever be found.

Boston

As much as ritual determined that Saphya would spit bitter lemon at everyone until they were on the plane, she spent the entire plane journey apologising for it. It was great for her children when they stopped at the shops for chocolate and she bought them as much as they wanted, right up until the point when William would intervene on her impressive guilty conscience and cut them back to a bag of mints between them. By the time they landed in Boston and settled into their rental car, their soft dynamic had settled down as Annabella and Sacha drifted off to sleep. Nikki soon followed, while Roxie plugged herself into music and rested her eyes.

"I like them like this," Saphya giggled softly, a smile brightening her expression, which in turned warmed William a little. He hadn't seen his wife smile properly today yet.

"When they're sleeping?"

"Mmmm," she cooed, reaching behind her to push Sacha's coat up to his chin, her eyes melting like bubble-gum ice cream. Ever since she had agreed to marry him, Saphya had never failed to surprise William. Within just a few months, he though he knew every expression she could pull – stony steel, baby blue innocence, blown-up blushing, dark poker shark, sweet blueberry and smoky mist. Yet, when Roxie had been born and pressed, screaming, into her arms for the first time, William had watched as a new fire, eating her heart out from the inside, melted her eyes, wide and bubbling. "We made some good children, Will."

"We have," he pondered, catching a glimpse of them in the mirror. He'd made a good child before them, with Diana, and he was proud of Spencer from afar, as he should be. But he was past – tucked away in a cupboard and treasured, polished and still in excellent condition – and they were present. "I've been thinking about signing Nikki up for extra tuition."

"What does he need extra tuition for? He's a hard worker and he's getting some of the best grades in his class."

"His mathematics can be brought up, I think."

"He'll come into it eventually. Just give him space, we shouldn't pressure him when he's doing good enough already." William was silent for a few more moments, watching his son breathing steadily in his sleep, his face smooth and unmarked by worry. Perhaps it was best. "Ah, fuck, I can't believe I'm still doing this."

"What?"

"Putting on a brave face so wade through all the little shits that try to keep me from my grandmother. You know, Dad, Mum and my sister are probably the only people in that house who actually care for her. The rest of them just want her money."

"She's lucky to still have you. And her strength and wits."

"I'll probably die before she does," Saphya scoffed without humour. "I'm being stupid. Of course they love her – she's their mother and grandmother too. They just hate me."

"They don't hate you."

"Aunt Estella once told me he'd wished I'd never been born. And I swear it was Uncle David that tried to persuade Yale Ruby was Communist."

William couldn't find anything to say to that. Eighteen years ago when Saphya had first explained her family situation to him, he had thought she was exaggerating. But when he'd attended his first birthday party of Cecilia Mae Wilcot, he'd realised that Saphya had actually left a lot unsaid. She had told him about how her father, Edward Wilcot II, was the second son of the head of the old-money Wilcot clan and that his marriage to her mother – a granddaughter of an impoverished Russian aristocracy that had fled the Revolution – had ruptured his family connections with all but his mother, Cecilia, and two of his siblings, Angela and Quentin. (Unfortunately, he had only known briefly, if at all, before they both died within three years of each other, shortly after he met Saphya.) William suspected he would have liked them, however – Angela's children were a genuine bunch, he thought, even if a little rough, while Quentin had proceeded to thoroughly burn his bridges to the family when he married a black woman named Lula. Like Edward before him, Cecilia and Angela had continued staying in touch with Quentin, and when the 'King of the Wilcot's' had died in 1982, Cecilia had been quick to seize the reins and pull her cast off sons back into the family fold.

That, as far as William was initially concerned, had been that. When he had been introduced to Cecilia just before his wedding, however, he had been on the brink of punching a few of Saphya's relatives at the time. Her Uncle David, the eldest, was a Republican Senator with as many decent values as Hitler, and his WASP wife, Carrie Anne, was just as vile. Emmet and Estella, Edward's other two younger siblings, were just snobs; rude and disinterested in everyone except themselves, but David was something else. As was his daughter Rosemary. The rest of his children were fairly decent, but Rosemary was her Daddy's daughter and seemed to have something of a vendetta against Saphya for being a better person than she was.

Even after another eighteen years, they were exactly the same. At first it had been so confusing that he'd had to write everyone down in a little list, adding on children as they were born and death dates as people died. He still kept it in a drawer, written in pencil so he could rub and add when things changed. He could vaguely remember how it went:

 _Our Leader: Cecilia Mae Wilcot_

 _The Politicians - David, Senator, m. Carrie Anne_

 _first child: Rosemary The Witch m. Eric Cabot, spawn: Eileen and Daniel_

 _second child: Edgar (became ASA) m. Emma Woodcock, kids: Catherine, Samuel, Leonard_

 _third child: Christopher (Congressman) m. Laurelle (she's nice)_

 _fourth child: Sophie?_

 _fifth child: Amanda (gold-digger married Franklin Griswold, 12+ y) kid: Michael_

 _sixth child: Thomas (Dr)_

 _seventh child: Jack (Cap. navy)_

 _The Lowell's – Angela the Good, (family lawyer) d.1993 m. Wesley John Lowell III d.2001_

 _first: Lewis (trust kid, bad apple) m. Barbara Serrecold (heiress)_

 _second: Dinah (trust kid, med student)_

 _third: Wesley John Lowell IV (lawyer)_

 _fourth: James (history prof)_

 _The Russian's – Edward and Ekaterina_

 _Us_

 _Ruby and Dion – Sylvia, Samwise, Aaron and Jasper_

 _Jasper d.1995_

 _The Brownlee's – Emmet (PR comp) m. Wendy Kingston d.1978, - Sally (fish comp) – married again to Shirley Brownlee who kept last name (enviro prof), had daughter from prev marriage – Elsa Brundy (karate)_

 _The Rowe's – Quentin d.1990 m. Lula Maggie Rowe (clean comp manager)_

 _Lillian (farm manager)_

 _Emily (wall street)_

 _Gerald (sax player)_

 _Corrie (uni)_

 _Issy (ballerina)_

 _Sera (uni)_

 _The Windham's – Estella (trust kid) m. Marshall Robert Windham_

 _Oliver (mummy boy, executive) m. Zoe du Pont (journalist)_

 _Alex (trust kid)_

 _Melanie (trust traveller atm)_

He may have been wrong about a few details as he chopped and changed over the years, but that was pretty much the gist. There were also Cecilia's nephew and his kids, but he'd never really spoken to them much, so he didn't know how to include them if all he could write was _Astor kid n1_.

Apart from a few non-committal remarks every now and again the journey to the Wilcot estate continued in silence. Eventually, after another hour of driving, they reached the gates to Applecorn. As William turned into the drive, Saphya turned and shook the children awake, whilst simultaneously texting Ruby to let her know she was inside. Gradually, the Hybrid crept up the road toward the old Georgian estate, whilst long, dark fingers criss-crossed the road. Once they reached the front of the house, where lights flared from intermittent points across the windows, streaking out across the drive. William pulled carefully off to the side, parking behind a Rolls Royce, carful to leave whomever it belonged to plenty of room to manoeuvre.

As the family climbed out of the car, a few shapes appeared from the great doors of Applecorn, and ran forward. Among them, William recognised Ruby and Dion, Saphya's sister and brother-in-law, whilst the other two wore pure black, indicating they were probably Cecilia's servants. Though he wouldn't have minded carrying the bags, he knew better than to dismiss Cecilia's display of good will.

"Hey, Ruby!" Saphya beamed, who had taken both Annabella and Sacha by the hand, so they wouldn't run off between the cars. Both sisters embraced, while Dion reached behind to give Roxie and Nikki some affectionate hugs before turning to William. "How are you, Dion?"

"All the better for the allies coming in. Cecilia went to bed a couple of hours ago, but I'm sure you understand why."

"She's eighty-eight, I'm surprised she's still working on the family assets. How is she?"

"Still strong as a bloody ox and terrifying as ever," Dion smirked.

"Thank God, all is well." Both men laughed, but sobered at their wives expressions. Neither seemed to appreciate their humour regarding their grandmother. The children were too tired to care. "Come on. Lets all get to bed and get ready for tomorrow."

 **I realise that the numerous characters in this story might be confusing, which is why I thought it would be a good idea to introduce a little character list in this chapter. Sorry, again, that there was trouble uploading this chapter.**


	5. Chapter 3 Part 2

**I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters on the show. I know I haven't exactly got round at the moment to many scenes involving the actual Criminal Minds team. I will come round to it eventually. Right now, I want to set out my original characters.**

Roxie had awoken the morning a little later than her body usually prescribed to her, but managed to make it down in time to scrape breakfast from her plate and kiss Cecilia good-morning. As could be expected, she was relaxing within her favourite room, the drawing room toward the front of the house, where elongated; slim windows had replaced the original smaller ones. This had allowed more light to enter the room during the morning, which was when Cecilia was most active.

Entering the room from the main hall, where the doors stretched toward the ceiling, was always a pleasure. Having been remodelled by Cecilia these past few years, so she could feel as at home as possible when greeting her guests, the room had been transformed into a very effeminate space with soft and delicate undertones. The walls were principally soft pink, frosted with white and lined with gold across the panelling. The furniture was detailed to the mood of the room – plump, long, and supportive with white, light mahogany and rose overtones – and the paintings, books and statues along the rims were artistic and pleasurable rather than serious and familial-centred. Even the grand piano, Cecilia currently played _Fur Elise_ from was white with a fine detail of gold.

"Prababushka, that is so beautiful," Roxie squealed happily as Cecilia finished, delicately extending a long, gangly arm around her graceful Great-Grandmother. With an affectionate smile, Cecilia hugged back, enjoying Roxie's scent originating from the first editions she loved so much.

"My sweet Roxana, you've grown so much! And your hair is much prettier now you've let it grown long!" Cecilia pushed Roxie back for a moment so she could trace her cheekbones that had become more defined, and curl a ringlet around a graceful finger. "Oh you're so beautiful! Did you enjoy the Fitzgerald's I sent you?"

"They were amazing! My favourite was _Tender is the Night_ … Fitzgerald's language was sublime. I didn't think you would be a fan of Fitzgerald though. I thought you might consider him too radical."

"Darling this family could not have survived if I remained conservative: something your Great-Grandfather never understood," Cecilia smiled, drawing a finger down Roxie's nose, then turning back to the piano to shift through her favourites. She eventually found a piano solo of Celine Dion's _It's All Coming Back to Me Now_ , then, as she was about to commence, paused for a moment and turned to Roxie again. "How's your piano coming along, Roxie?"

"I just passed my Grade Seven a few weeks ago, but I haven't played much beside my exam pieces for months, I'm afraid."

"Would you like to play the piano, whilst I sing?"

"Oh yes," Roxie smiled, but was interrupted in that moment by Nikki coming through from breakfast. With a broad smile splitting through his long blonde hair, he swept his mop aside to kiss Cecilia.

"Hello, Great-Gram. How was your holiday in Sicily?"

"Oh, it was delightful, Nikki. I think you'd really have liked some of the art I saw there – my friend had some amazing private collections from the Italian Renaissance. I heard you joined a gaming club, is that correct?"

"Yeah, it's been really cool. It's really small though."

"Oh well that can change. What on earth is a 'gaming club'? Do you play chess or cards? I hope you're not betting money, Nikki, it's very bad, especially at your age."

"Oh no, Great-Gram, I'm not betting or anything, and it's not chess. It's electronic gaming like PS2 and Xbox."

"It sounds like your kind of phenomena dear, but as long as it interests you and your making some more friends," Cecilia cooed, smiling at him warmly, yet with a hint of anxiety. "I was very worried about you, you know, when your mother told me you'd fallen out with your friends. You seemed to be turning into a recluse."

"You don't need to worry, Great-Gram, that's all sorted and better now. No, the guys from the gaming club are really great. We're thinking about going to a convention together during summer break."

"That's even better news. Your sister and I were just about to play together, would you like to listen?"

"Sure," Nikki shrugged, shrinking back from the piano to sit on a canapé. Roxie smiled a little: Nikki had used to love listening to her play when they were younger, but as he'd grown more recluse, he hadn't sat to listen to her in ages. Addressing her fingers to the keys, she started on the strong cords, listening to Cecilia harmonise. When she opened up to the main verse, she quietened her chords so Cecilia didn't strain her voice so much to be heard over the instrument. Even so, it didn't seem necessary: Prababushka had kept her soprano voice in good practice over the years, so serene and powerful, that with professional training, she could have possibly been an opera singer. Yet, on more than one occasion, Cecilia had dismissed the notion, explaining that singing was more fun when she could be an amateur.

As she struck up again for the bridge, Roxie noticed that quite a few members of the family had gathered together, but she ignored them and continued, imagining they were the Rowe's, Lowell's and Carmichael's. She sincerely hoped they were. When she and Cecilia finally finished, a small string of applause rang through the room like a trail of small bells.

"That was beautiful, Mother," a voice spoke softly, and, with a chill, Roxie recognised it as Great-Aunt Estella. Looking around the room, although she was relieved to see Mama, Papa, Aunt Lula, Gerald and Corrie, she noticed that there was also Aunt Estella, Rosemary, Edgar and Emma to contend with. "I think you performed better than the original. Roxana, you were very good too."

"Thank you, Aunt Estella," Roxie replied, quietly, shifting in her seat, but was ignored.

"You should run off to New York where they train all the professionals. Like your cousin, Gerald. You could be a duet."

"I think she's far away from that yet, Aunt Estella," Saphya interjected quickly. "But the sentiment is _much_ appreciated. My daughter is exceptionally talented. It must have skipped a generation from her father, though, because I can't play music to save my life."

"Don't be silly, Sapphire," Cecilia cooed, softly. "You have a beautiful alto voice. You just never put in the practice, because you were so focused on your sciences. Not that there should be any fault with that, your career is marvellous."

"Although it is a shame," Rosemary interjected loudly, bringing everyone's attention to her, "that you never put much stock into your interest in artistic pleasures, Sapphire. It reflects quite poorly in your expansion of cultural refinement."

Quite offended, Cecilia made to rebuff her, but Roxie was pleased to see that Mama got there first. "Indeed, Rosemary it is a shame that you seem to think that. Since quite a few mutual friends and acquaintances consider my _cultural refinement_ to be more expanded than your own. Especially with regard to _multi-cultural_ parameters."

Before Rosemary could open her mouth again, Cecilia opened hers: "I consider both my granddaughters to be as refined and elegant as each other, even as much as I am. I hope they won't prove me wrong today," she added with a meaningful look that caused Saphya to cast her eyes down in shame, while Rosemary looked aside in annoyance. "Now, Roxie, would you care to join me in a Tchaikovsky duet. After that, I have asked David to escort me on my morning walk around the groups. I was hoping we could take some of the boats out of the Bay this afternoon if the weather continues to be cheerful."

"Mother, I don't think the sea would be good for you," Estella tried to speak up again, but Cecilia waved it off.

"Nonsense, my young flower. In fact, the doctors have prescribed exactly the opposite. Fresh sea air, but nothing too exciting, apparently, will help clear my lungs off some of the pollutants I pick up when I visit the docks. Now Roxie, here is my selection of Tchaikovsky – which would you like to play?"

After selecting the Sleeping Beauty Waltz, which Cecilia performed the harmony to Roxie's main tune, which they carried off delicately, with very quick and lively notes. Taking her posture up a little straighter, Roxie was half-seized up with a nervous tension at the pace of her spot reading. Although she rarely struggled, the idea of performing in front of her family was making her nervous, so nervous that she began to use the effortless quality to her movements that so often defined her style. Towards the end of the tenth movement, Roxie faltered a little on a chord and had to take a deep breath. In the same instant, Cecilia reached a hand quickly over to run a small finger down Roxie's hand, from tip of the index to her wrist, before moving back to her harmony. The gesture, simple as it was, released Roxie from the present and to a dimension she streamed through when exerting her artistic pleasures. It blurred the events and people around her until only the keys, notes and Cecilia were brought into a focus, not sharp, but defined and more real than the abstract chaos she had previously been caught up. Taking a firm breath, Roxie continued, enjoying the way in which some of her fingers shifted without direct thought between the chords, resulting from the repetition of earlier movements within the piece. At some point, even the sharp stretch of the piano in front of her fell away and blurred, like a long mirror of a memory, into a projection of the waltz from the Disney movie. It had been one of her favourites as a child: one of her fondest memories indeed, was curling around her Prababushka's legs in a thick woollen blanket when she had a cold and watching a marathon of Disney movies. Later that night, Prababushka had lullabied her to sleep with a rendition of her favourite childhood songs on the piano, including Once Upon a Dream, Part of Your World and A Dream is Wish Your Heart Makes. The next time she had visited Prababushka, she had asked her to teach her how to make the music she had done on the pretty piano. For her fifth birthday, Prababushka bought them a fine, ebony piano decorated with small pink and blue flowers for Roxie to learn from. They had never replaced it.

As the pair steadied their tempo into a smooth finish, there was no little chime of bells to chorus their finale, but rather a dead silence following in their wake. At least, Roxie and Cecilia thought so until they tuned into some rather muffled shouting coming from the hallway, possibly a flight up the grand staircase. Rather affronted, Cecilia stiffened, and to avoid any discomfort, Roxie turned to Cecilia and forced a smile. "I know you said Uncle David was to escort you around the gardens, Prababushka, but would you mind if we went around the front. I'm feeling a little sickly from breakfast, I might have had too much syrup on my French toast."

"Oh… oh yes, darling. Erm… Nikki would you like to come too?"

"Yes, Great-Gram."

"Oh how lovely. We can use the French doors in the ballroom just through the next door. Then we can all sit down for lunch together. Gerald, would you be a love and start collecting your sisters and cousins from around the estate? I believe they went across to the courts to play a game of baseball."

"Ok, Grandma. But it might take a while."

"Thank-you, darling. And, Lula, William, dears, I know it might be terribly inconvenient for you, but I forgot to ask Xander to pick up my necklace from the jewellery shop – it's the silver and pearl one I was having repaired. I was hoping to wear it later. If Jerome gave you the receipt, could you go pick it up please?"

"Of course, Cecilia. Come on, Will. I'll drive. You go find Jerome."

With that, having effectively cleared the room of most of those whose business the fight was not, the remaining members hovered, slightly lost as to what to do next. As the voices gradually increased in volume and pressure upon the fragile walls of the house, eyes began to settle on Rosemary, Edgar, and even Emma a little bit. After a further five minuets, Rosemary just snapped, "Well, what do you want us to do about it?"

"I don't know, Rosemary," Estella huffed patronisingly, as if she were still addressing her niece like a five-year-old. "Amanda is your sister. The pair of you know her the best."

"Actually, Rosemary knows Amanda the best," Edgar quipped snappishly, shooting his sister a disgusted look to which Emma closed her eyes in despair and Rosemary flushed bright red.

"What is that exactly supposed to imply, Ed?"

"Just that the pair of your are exceptionally close, Rosemary. You've always had a certain amount of influence over Amanda, to be sure. Seeing as it seems like Amanda is mostly fuelling that argument with Franklin upstairs, you might be the best person to get her to calm down before Grandmother comes back inside."

"Oh don't be so sanctimonious," Rosemary spat right back, but turned on her heel and left anyway. A few moments later, they heard someone climb the stairs and the voices died down for a moment. The next time they did hear voices, it was mostly Amanda, trying to justify herself to Rosemary. About five minuets afterwards, heavy footsteps followed the path Rosemary had just taken, but steered past the drawing room and into the garden.

"Edgar, shouldn't we try and do something?" Emma asked cautiously.

"About what, Em? Mandy made her bed, very neatly I might add, and now she must lie in it until she either falls out or Franklin kicks her out."

"She's your sister."

"I know she's my sister, Emma. I just don't understand her anymore," Edgar groaned and left the room, muttering something about there being a scotch in his room, whilst Emma crushed herself to the canapé with a heavy sigh. Without saying a word, Estella left too, leaving Saphya and Emma alone and quite unsettled together.

Just as Saphya was about to leave for the ballroom after her children and grandmother, Emma spoke to her: "Edgar's said a few times that you are cleaver, Sapphire. In fact, he quite admires you."

"Um…" Saphya hesitated, not having known before that Edgar had given her that much regard. As the District Attorney of Massachusetts, Edgar had had to hone his people skills to get there – to be given such praise was certainly flattering. "That's very kind of him."

"He's a very good person, but he's under a lot of stress at the moment. He has been for a while," Emma sighed weakly, biting her lip.

"Care to share?"

"I would love to, but… Urgh… it's confidential, for the moment at least. It might not be for much longer," Emma faltered, wringing her hands together, suddenly rather angry. "Rosemary and Amanda certainly don't help. They're just like their parents – all uptight about the family name being something you use the law to hide behind. Something you use selfishly. Why do people use something good, and twist it into something evil? Why can't we be good people and good Wilcot's?"

"It depends on your definition of what it means to be a 'Wilcot', I suppose. We can be Wilcot's like them or Wilcot's like Cecilia," Saphya groaned, equally as heavy as Emma. "If you don't mind my asking, what is up with Amanda and Franklin?"

"Politics, and money too, to a certain extent. David, Carrie Anne and Rosemary liked Franklin so much for Amanda's husband, was because his family have had a vested political and financial investment in the Republican Party for decades. They're not as successful as David has been, but they host a lot of fundraisers and soirees… that kind of stuff. Recently, however, Franklin decided he was going to invest his inheritance in an education that his family didn't approve of. He wasn't being radical or anything. He's the type of man who likes to sit down civilly with the opposite side and discuss philosophy, just out of pure interest and intellectual stimulation. Anyway, during this education, Franklin decided that he wished to be more Democrat. He's taken a lot of meetings recently with David's opposition, discussed terms for support and even applied some of his new thinking to his independent entrepreneurial adventures. Essentially, he's potentially changing the Griswold's future political alignments and business foundations. No one really approves, including Amanda. It's been rocking their boat."

"Geez, that's a hotpot," Saphya groaned. "You think they could put in on the backburner for Grandma's birthday. Then again, they never have before. Whose to say this time its any different."

"Poor Cecilia. I don't know why she insists on throwing us all together like this. She knows what happens."

"Its her statement," Saphya shrugged simply. "She wants everyone to get along, just for one day, to celebrate the day of her birth she wants all her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to come together, despite their differences, to celebrate a common love. I always try to respect that, and to my own disappointment, sometimes a few of them push a few too may of my buttons and I fail. But unlike some of the others, I at least try."

"I know you do, Saphya," Emma smiled, slightly. "You're right, and so is Cecilia." She stood up again. "I should probably go find Edgar. He'll probably have gone to find the children. I'll see you later."

"Bye Emma." Saphya replied with a true smile. Despite everything that had happened that morning, it was refreshing and fine to know that she had Edgar and Emma's respect, even if they were not especially close. Perhaps there was some hope for this family after all.


	6. Chapter 4 Part 1

**I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters on the show. Thank you rosek28 for pointing out the problems this this page.**

Quantico

"Pretty Boy! Why is it so bright in your bedroom?"

"It is 6am, Morgan! The sun isn't even at its optimal height yet!" Reid called through to the bedroom where he had unceremoniously dumped Morgan last night, after his best friend had found himself uncapable of driving home last night. When his friend dragged out a moan at Reid's voice peeling in his ears like Notre Dame bells. Kicking the covers off, Reid swung himself of the sofa, stumbling a little as he struggled to right his lanky legs.

A few long steps and he could peer into the bedroom, smothering his laughter behind his hand. The curtains were almost completely closed, letting in the smallest sliver of light, which had swam slowly across the bed until it had caught the rim of his eyes. Now he squirmed across the bed, trying to escape that little intruder. "Something wrong, Morgan?"

"Your curtains don't work."

"My curtains work fine," Reid smirked, but he entered the bedroom and overlapped them a little anyway, so Morgan could get some sleep. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Water… aspirin in my pocket, please," Morgan growled, while Reid continued to shake with laughter. Noticing his friend's amusement at his pain, she struck out a well aimed kick. "Sadist."

"I am not a sadist," Reid remarked with genuine confusion. "Sadists are people who derive sexual gratification from inflicting torture and pain on others, or observing such infliction of pain…"

"I know what a sadist is Reid!"

"Then why are you calling me one?"

"Because you are. You're enjoying this."

"Not sexually…"

"It's a joke, Reid."

"Oh," Reid faltered awkwardly, whilst it was Morgan's turn to smirk. "I'll go make coffee."

"Thanks, kid," he mumbled drowsily as he drifted off back to sleep.

Reid wandered back out of the room, leaving Morgan to his headache, already smelling coffee he was about to make for himself. He was not as incapacitated as Morgan, but the Star Trek drinking game he'd gotten into with a couple of others had not gone very well after that first shot of vodka. That he could blame on Morgan – he given him a quick nudge on the side as he passed the table, distracting him long enough that his time ran out on the quote. He'd still been good after the first shot, but they'd gotten a few good ones in. He was going have to pay Morgan back for that, he decided.

He tapped the coffee machine on, piling it all the way to the rim for him and Morgan, keeping the granules out in case he was in need of more, and began rummaging around for some sugar. As his luck could only have it, the sugar had somehow ended right up at the back of the cupboard. Scrambling to retrieve it from the depths of his near-empty cupboards (that he hardly had time to fill), he bumped his head on the drawer he'd left open from when he'd been fishing out spoons. While his headache beat on, a dull thud also started to spread across the top of his head, so hard that for a moment he'd thought he might have cracked his skull.

"Well this is clearly an excellent morning," Reid groaned, sinking down to the kitchen floor and trying to massage his head back to full gear. He just wasn't functioning properly this morning.

From this position across the kitchen, he noticed that the box he had received last week from Las Vegas was still buried behind the back of the couch. It was certainly a bit of an odd story – last Monday, the man who had stored his stuff for him in Las Vegas while he studied at Caltech, whilst he was at college had given him a call. One of his seventy-plus boxes that he had put into storage apparently had, embarrassingly, been mixed up in transit and it had just been found nearly ten years later. They'd identified it, apparently, when they were cleaning out some of their older stores and, once they had located Reid's address, returned it personally with an offer for a 10% reimbursement. Which Reid had rejected.

Unfortunately, right after they delivered the package, the team had been called out to deal with Hanson's mess in California, so he hadn't had time to open it and see what he hadn't been missing for ten years. It fascinated him when he hadn't much else to think about, which was, in truth, not much. He had half considered just asking to company to throw the box away, but on some curious level, he wondered why he had forgotten about that extra box when he had his eidetic memory.

Shuffling back to his feet, Reid reached into the drawer he still hadn't closed and withdrew a small knife to help shred the box open. He weighed it in his hand again – not very heavy, rustling a lot, probably old papers and files or something. Maybe something from high school or middle school, a project he'd practiced on and forgotten.

When he finally opened it, however, it became clear why Reid had forgotten about this box. It wasn't that it had just casually slipped through a hole in his eidetic memory; it was that he'd spent so long repressing the fact that was contained in it even existed that it had gradually been worn away. The first photograph he pulled out was the first baseball game his father had taken him to, although the memory of it was faint, like an old film that had been sliced and diced until only a few frames remained. There was also a picture of his parent's wedding day, their fifth anniversary, a few of him crawling all through his father's arms and legs as a baby while he struggled to keep up with him. His mum had once commented how strange she thought it was that as a baby he'd been so active, but once he was old enough to enjoy sports and other physical activities, he failed miserably.

There were a few more from birthdays, general trips out, even a few presents he couldn't bear to look at any more, because they reminded him too much of him. About a year after he had left when Reid was nine, his mum had decided to pack away everything he owned that he hadn't taken with him. Mostly it was photographs, old journals and old work files. There was his favourite chair, his office furniture and even the violin he'd played when he was younger, which all went to the charity shop eventually. Reid preferred it when it was all gone, and he didn't have to look at reminders of the man who had walked out of their lives. To discover it all again in some dusty old box, brought a deep-set chill to his lungs, like they had suddenly been swamped with water. Everything grated on his brain and he tried running statistics through his mind to calm himself.

"Pretty Boy, where's the coffee?" Morgan called through from the bedroom, causing Reid to jump. Stuffing everything back in the box and shoving it under the table, Reid wandered to the coffee pot to pour it, then cursed when he realised how lukewarm it was. How long had it been? He checked his watch – he'd been staring at those photos for over two hours.

"It's coming, Morgan. Sorry, yours went cold. I'll just reheat it," Reid choked, tapping on the coffee pot again and searching through his medical cabinet from the Aspirin.


	7. Chapter 4 Part 2

**I do not own Criminal Minds or any of the characters on the show.**

Boston

Out across the Back Bay, the sun was bleeding out, pumping red into the sky and sea whilst the night crept upon the closing Sunday. Everyone else had vacated Applecorn earlier in the day, so they wouldn't miss work on Monday, but the Reid's had fallen into a spot of luck. Both of the schools the Reid children attended were closed on the Monday, one due to electrical rewiring across the science department, the other due to a massive day of school fundraising. To extend the family break at Applecorn, Saphya had negotiated an extra day off at the university while William had agreed to work from home on the Monday, while Saphya organised the travelling. In theory, it was supposed to go smoothly, but both Saphya and William knew one parent managing a migration from Boston to Las Vegas would be hell.

For the time being however, the remaining Wilcot's were scrawled across a small patch of beach next to the harbour on the estate. As well as Cecilia and the Reid's, Gerald Wilcot was playing a soft, sexy Blues on his saxophone for his grandmother's entertainment, whilst Lewis and Barbara Lowell had engaged Alex Windham in a card game. The latter three had no work to be going to on Monday either, and Gerald was currently enjoying a week's holiday at Applecorn before he had to return to New York to practice for a concerto. Cecilia loved her family, but she always loved it when Gerald visited alone – quite a few of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were amateur musicians, but only Gerald was a professional.

Quite separate from the rest of the clan, was Roxie enjoying the rub of the sand along her back. She'd packed her hair under a sun cap to stop it getting filled with sand, and propped her head up against a rolled up towel to support her neck while she read _Life and Fate_ by Vasily Grossman. To her right, Annabella and Sacha were burying Saphya in the sand, whilst Nikki listened to Gerald with Cecilia and William was browsing something on his computer. When Saphya broke out into a sandstorm and began chasing her children up and down the beach, William closed down the laptop, tucked it into the beach bag and joined in.

After another hour and a half on the beach, Roxie was three-quarters of a way through her book and decided to call it a night. Her eyes felt heavy from following the print across the page, and her neck was a little stiff from lying on the towel. Setting the book aside for the moment, she stood up, cracked her neck and popped a few joints. Up the beach, Cecilia must have called for some garden furniture to be brought from the house – she was sat up there with Gerald, Lewis, Alex, William, Nikki and Annabella, drinking homemade cocktails. Saphya, Barbara and Sacha had disappeared back up to the house.

As she thought about the possibility of those three in bed, Roxie began to yawn herself. Catching the corner of William's laptop with her eye, she smiled sweetly and ran up behind him to give him a hug. "Papa, would you mind if I used your computer to check my blog?"

"Of course, sweetheart. Just don't run out the battery. Are you going to bed?"

"Yeah I think so. Night, Papa. Thank-you for a lovely day, Prababushka."

"My pleasure, darling. Night, night."

Picking up her papa's computer, Roxie followed the garden lights back towards the back porch, where some of Cecilia's servants were just finished cleaning up after dinner. The lights had been dimmed slightly, leaving a soft golden glow across the porch, the glass from the table blinking back gently. Once inside, she took the shortcut upstairs, using the back staircase so she wouldn't have to walk all the way to the front, just to go all the way up the grand staircase. Besides, the back stairs came right out at her usual room.

One of the things, Roxie loved about her grandma, as soon as a member of the family turned ten-years-old, they were guaranteed their own room at Applecorn, each one specifically decorated to the family and changed over time with each of their interests. Roxie's, for example, had a lovely long, tall, oaken bookshelf filled with first editions, DVDs and EP records, whilst the ivy panelled walls were decorated with old book prints from _War and Peace_ , _Pamela_ , _Pride and Prejudice_ and _Evelina_. There was a long varnished desk, with a television and plenty room for her studying, and the bed was four-poster, generally decorated with a light gold and small ivy green patterns. Prababushka had decorated the room with ivy, she remembered, because, apparently when Roxie was younger, she loved nestling in the thick ivy that pooled up the side of the house whilst reading Jane Austen. Cecilia was thoughtful like that.

Getting changed into her pyjamas, Roxie flipped open the computer and brought up her blog. She'd set it up two years ago, writing book and film reviews for classic and recent releases. Although she preferred to focus on literary and artistic genres, she was open-minded toward the higher blockbusters that people were interested on some occasions. Although she didn't have many followers, she enjoyed it, and the anonymity that had come with it in recent months. She hadn't been on any of her social media accounts since McKinley started spreading rumours.

After replying to some of her massagers, she decided to do start downloading and clipping some freeze frames for her review on amoral heroes and heroines with a particular focus on Tony Stark in _Iron Man_. She hadn't really wanted to go and see that film, but Marcella had dragged her out and they'd actually had fun together. She opened up the photo library and dragged the stills she'd found online into the box for cropping and annotation. It was a great tool to use for organising the family slideshows and for her blog… at least it was until the computer froze again.

"Urgh, come on! How much did we spend on this thing? And it freezes six times a year… of course it does!" Frustrated, tiredness fogging her logical hemisphere of the brain, she wiggled the mouse around, clicking at random columns on the frozen screen to try and make it unfreeze. Eventually, the screen stuttered for a few moments, before a few pictures flashed onscreen and it settled back to normal. "Finally!" she declared, zooming in on her picture of Tony Stark with a drink in his hand

Except the file that was open here wasn't her cropped Stark. It had somehow landed on an enlarged newspaper clipping, probably from an inside cover of a serious newspaper. She was about to start scrolling for her file again, she caught the title and subtitle of the piece: _Youngest FBI Agent Breaks Age Barrier, Dr. Spencer Reid, aged 22, will be joining FBI's Behavioural Analysis Unit this Fall despite the required age being 24 and expected 10 years of experience._ Reid? Roxie checked the file, and realised it had been saved under Papa's username under a specific file she had never seen before labelled 'Spencer'. Hovering over the folder, the info popped up next to it, reading:

 _Unlocked_

 _MediaPhotosWilliamFamily_

The file was quite large, clearly holding a very large collection of photographic and video material. She'd never heard of Papa mentioning anyone called Spencer: the only other people under the family folder were herself, her siblings, Mama, Uncle Daniel, Aunt Ethel, grandparents and Cecilia. As far as she knew, Uncle Daniel and Aunt Ethel didn't have any children, and he and Papa were her paternal grandparent's only children. Then again, she didn't know them very well.

Turning back to the clipping, she looked at the photograph attached. It portrayed three people outside a police station, turned towards a gang of reporters with serious expressions on their faces. Although professional, there was a hint of a proud smile on each of their faces, even from the one at the back trying to shrink away from the crowd. The tagline beneath read: _Left to Right_ : _Dr. Spencer Reid, Agent Duncan Farrell, FBI Academy Chief Supervisor and Agent Aaron Hotchner, team leader in the BAU._ Her eyes followed toward the male toward left, trying to shrink behind his supervisors. He was tall, maybe six-four, very skinny, with very prominent features that were softened by brown curls and soft doe eyes. His complexion and colouring couldn't determined by such a grainy photo, but there were some aspects that were clear enough to form a definite picture of what he looked like.

For a moment, Roxie considered leaving the file alone. It was Papa's life, Papa's privacy, and if she had left a password on one of her folders in her user area, her parents would never snoop. But she was a curious child; it was partly why she had grown so intelligent. She was always digging into books she wasn't supposed to – she read _Catcher in the Rye_ when she was nine. So she clicked on the 'Spencer' file and blew it up to full screen before she could change her mind.

The first picture that came up was another newspaper clipping. A few of them had dates attached, the first one being the most recent 29/04/2008, where it mentioned that _two Agents from the FBI named Dr. Spencer Reid and Agent Emily Prentiss were held hostage at the fortress for the Separatarian Sect in La Plata County, Colorado_. A further articles either simply mentioning Dr. Spencer Reid as part of his BAU taskforce and a few older ones making him their subject shortly after he had joined and graduated from the FBI academy. Published papers then followed these newspaper clippings, from his PhD's in Mathematics, Chemistry and Engineering and a dissertation in Psychology. All of the predated, what Roxie could only guess, his 20th birthday. There were a few other articles commenting on the 12-year-old high school graduate accepted into Caltech, a few with photos accompanying people who were assumedly his teachers but always a tall woman with prominent, yet softer features than her son, gleaming proudly at a painfully shy child with a brilliant smile of his own.

Then there came picture that was completely different. Unlike the newspaper clippings and essays she had just looked at, watching Dr. Spencer Reid's life in backward motion, this photograph had jumped from aged 12 to an 8 or 9-year-old boy. This time though, the photo was in full-colour, family mode, like something you would put in a photo frame on the dresser. As a boy, he was dressed in a stripped shirt and brown trousers, with smart strapped shoes instead of trainers. A paper crown sat proudly on his head, and he beamed toothily through large, thick glasses at the camera, whilst surrounded by birthday wrapping paper and about a twenty new volumes. Around his waist, his father had hooked a playful arm, and with the other he held a large chocolate frosted cake in front of his face with nine fat candles. She followed the arms, to the chest, up the neck and froze. That was her Papa. Younger, with thicker hair and fewer lines, but it was he.

Roxie shook her head. Perhaps he was a nephew or something or a much younger cousin. That would probably explain better why there were no recent family pictures, just newspaper clippings. She clicked another picture, which was very similar, where the boy was receiving the presents as he unwrapped them, grinning at her Papa and someone past the camera. She carried on, clicking the screen, watching as so many photos formed a movie of the boys life. A happy and precocious yet shy child, buried in books on his front lawn, playing chess with adults in the park, reading with his mother, playing with a violin in her Papa's lap.

 _He never said he played violin before_ , Roxie frowned. _He's never played the violin with us. Mama never said anything like that._

It was even more than photos of them together. There were a few family ones where Papa had Dr. Reid's mother in a hug, a kiss or even caught up in just a look. They stared at him with pure, unadulterated affection, curled up beside them or stretched out in front of them. She'd seen Papa look at her, Nikki, Annabella and Sacha like that. So many times.

It might have hit Roxie much earlier than she cared to admit it, and she only could when she saw the newborn baby Reid in Papa's arms. Papa had never mentioned having another kid with someone else. She wouldn't have minded him not telling her about a woman he loved before – people loved other people before they got married to the people they settled down with. That happened in life. But she had a brother and he never told her. One who he hadn't seen in years if the fact that the family pictures stopped when young Reid was nine was any indicator. It just seemed like he was keeping tabs on him now. Downloading articles every time his name was tagged and filing them away in password-protected file so his wife and kids would never know.

It was almost… felt almost like a taunt. Here, there's this whole other life of mine you don't know about. Its on this ghost file in the computer we all use, but you can't see it because you don't know its there. It's locked up tight, just so you can't see. Just there, just there but you don't know. She felt sick.

 _Why would it be unlocked?_ Roxie screamed at herself. _Why would he collect all this for eighteen years, hide it away and then just leave it unlocked. He obviously kept it locked and in ghost mode for a reason. Why would he just leave it open?_

Then she remembered: Papa had been on his computer earlier that evening. Just working, leaning back on a rock… he hadn't been working. He'd been looking at this son he had, maybe downloading some new article online and adding to his file. Then he'd got up and closed his computer, didn't anticipate someone using it later, so he didn't bother locking the file back up again. Later, after fun and games and cocktails, he must have forgotten that he'd left the file open and just let Roxie take it.

One slip-up (or maybe one too many for all she knew) and now she knew. She knew she had a brother, who was a genius, a doctor and an FBI agent. She knew that his encouragement for their academic brilliance was tampered by what he had previously seen in his genius son. He wanted his second kids – the kids that came after the genius – to be just as good as this genius he'd lost or left behind somewhere. No, he'd left this kid behind. He knew exactly where he was, yet he hid him away from his family and probably hid himself from this kid. Yet he held him up on a pedestal, an invisible goal his wanted his kids to attain without them knowing of his expectations. That's why he read so much to Roxie when she was younger; why he wanted Nikki to get extra tutoring even though he was top of his class; why their shitty social lives prioritised below their academic excellence.

"God we've all been a pack of big fat fools," she sobbed, shutting down the computer and burying her face into her pillow, so no one could hear her cry.

"Is there anything that can be done apart from this, Emmet?" his lawyer spoke sharply, twisting his hand around his pen to try and alleviate the pressure. "I know you love Elsa. I'm sure there are better ways."

"Elsa has her mother to leave her everything," Emmet said with a degree of finality. "I'm going to die before either of them, and I'm sure once this all comes to light, Shirley will be as ruthless as I am."

"I think you overestimate her ferocity. She loves Sally as much as Elsa. She would not be so prejudice."

"Well she still has the money from her father's trust…"

"Which she just used to buy her new house. She doesn't have much of his legacy left…"

"I don't know why you're being so uptight about this. Elsa doesn't live like a society girl, she doesn't do expensive anything. She lives modestly, making good money at the studio and doing so very happily within her means. I've offered her money before to supply her with Sally's lifestyle and she refused. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"That may be so, but cutting Elsa out of your will entirely. I think at least you should discuss this with her so at your wake she won't get a nasty shock. It will be humiliating for her to say the least – people will think your relationship meant nothing and that is not true, I know it."

"You are more shallow than I thought if you think my relationship with Elsa can be defined by such terms. I love her and she knows that. This doesn't need explaining. The estate, which I always intended to leave to Sally, my _natural_ daughter, will not be able to support itself if I divide the assets between two people."

His lawyer stared at him a moment longer, his eyes sorrowful, as if he hoped Emmet would change his mind. Finally, he sighed and pushed the paperwork across the table for Emmet and the witnesses to sign. "Shirley will have my head for this when she finds out."

"Then leave the fucking country when I die. But this has to be done."


	8. Chapter 5 Part 1

**I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters on the show.**

"Well that weekend couldn't have gone by quickly enough. I swear mother gets more tedious every year." It was bad enough having to gather with the regular family, but they had been dealt with long ago – they knew not to act out. But everyone else was so uncouth and stupid: it was painfully irritating.

At least it had been a somewhat pleasant distraction from moving a three-day-old body. Yes, it had been stored in the large freezer that had been bought sometime ago, but that did not make the experience any less pleasant. After the first few times, the conclusion had been drawn that it was better to move it right away from the basement and to the graves. It eliminated a lot of worry about them being discovered in the house and was good to get it over and done with so the smell wouldn't stink up the car. Those old dog hairs from the mutt were bad enough.

It had been a mistake letting that dog into the home, but it would help in the long term. Before making a full commitment to this, it had seemed prudent to do research and reading David Rossi's books had been both entertaining and informative – cruelty to animals was one of the things police looked for when they were studying serial killers. If they ever discovered the bodies, the fact that there was a happy, bouncy doggy running around the gardens might just throw them off long enough to take preventative measures.

Anyway, back to business. That little bitch had to be out of the house before the cleaner arrived in a couple of hours. As usual, the car was backed up to the little private hatch with the back gate open and the grave had already been dug where it was needed. Once it was in the trunk, the hard part would be over.

Quantico

Reid didn't get much done over the rest of the weekend. He'd been planning on reading his new collection of Dostoyevsky's novellas and Jacques Derrida on the Sunday, but he could only read two after he had discovered that box again. Memories he had previously trapped under lock and key had punched their way out, hovering in the back of his brain, breaking out at several points during the day. It wasn't that he as sad or unhappy when he thought of William Reid after all these years. Reid was angry, but he wasn't, entirely sure how to process this.

It had been eighteen, nearly nineteen years since he had left and never seen him again. On the last day, Reid had been desperate to make him stay, confused as to why he was choosing now to leave them. When he finally moved into the stage where he was angry, there had been no one to vent it on. This left him withdrawn, bitter and even more confused for months, while he sat there waiting for William to appear somehow, just for five minuets, so he could tell him… or try and tell him… exactly how he had made him feel. How lonely, terrified and desperate that he now had to struggle to look after himself and his mum. But he never came. Eventually, when his mum had decided to pack up all of William's things into boxes, or throw them all away, Reid had decided that it was probably best to do the same. So he helped her, then spent hours packing all his own memories inside a little bottle in his mind, corkscrewed it firmly with wax to stop them leaking out somehow, and thrown it into the sea where it drifted away to sink below the surface. It had bobbed there for a good few months, and occasionally resurfaced from time to time, but eventually it drifted away so deep and so far that it became little more than a muddied speck on the horizon.

With that, came the end of Reid's relationship with his father. Until yesterday when he'd opened that damned box.

It was still bugging him when he walked into the bullpen Monday morning. Thoughts of his father bugged him so much that he nearly walked into the glass doors, tripped over a pile of boxes JJ was manoeuvring on a small trolley and walked right past Morgan and Prentiss when they greeted him good morning. After another five minuets of them trying to catch his attention, Morgan bundled up a spare scrap of paper and rapped it on his head. "Reid!"

"What?"

"That big brain of yours finally burned out? What's up with you this morning?"

"Oh… I'm sorry, I just… didn't get a lot of sleep last night…"

"You ok?" Prentiss asked.

"I'm fine, don't worry…" Reid replied, nodding softly. He started shifting through some of his files that he needed to write up. "I… er… I think I might have had too much coffee before bed last night."

"You're having too much coffee?" Prentiss asked disbelievingly.

"I consume on average 2-3 grams of caffeine per day. Caffeine is only poisonous when 5 grams is consumed within a prescribed number of hours."

"Good to know," Morgan replied. "How many cup of coffee is that?"

"Depending on personal preferences on the strength of coffee, between 30-40 cups."

"Well, I'm safe then," Morgan sat back in his chair, taking a swig from his mug. "I'm not as bad as you."

"Yeah," Reid mumbled, turning back to the files on his desk, tuning out his friends so he could concentrate on his work. He didn't feel like joking at the moment: he was afraid of snapping at them when he was thinking like this. Taking one off the top of the file, he opened it and started his work. It was a teenager they had put away three weeks ago in New York: a hacker who used his skills to stalk Wall Street traders and their families before killing them. They had closed it six weeks ago – just showed how backlogged they had become this past month.

He remembered when they got off the plane how upset Garcia had been. He didn't know much, but he knew she had been a crusader in her hacking days; so watching someone use the same powers she had mastered to kill people was terrible. They'd all gone out for dinner afterwards to help her feel better, and to give themselves a bit of a break too.

After they'd finished helping Garcia – promising her that what she did wasn't some form of violation or evil – Reid had sat down at his computer to print some photographs he wanted to send to his mother, then remembered how easily the Unsub had used family photographs he'd downloaded from his target's computer to identify them when he shot them all in a crowded restaurant. This was why he hated technology – a few clicks away were people's entire profile and personal lives. Even the fact that he didn't own social media employ the Internet much during his studies and used his email only for work functions spoke volumes about his personality and preferences.

He wondered how much he could find out about his father if he asked Penelope to do the same. In a small way, he hoped it was solitary and confined, with a lack of activity on his credit card suggesting he didn't have many friends. Maybe it would be good to find him and get some closure… but that idea pooled cold and icy in his gut the moment he thought of it. As angry and confused he was that his father left, he didn't want to twist that knob and open up another door. In fact, the more he thought about it, Reid thought he would be happy if he never saw his face again in his life.

With that thought in mind, the first thing he did when he got home was throw everything inside the box into the bin.


	9. Chapter 5 Part 2

**I don't own Criminal Minds and or any of the characters on the show.**

Las Vegas

After crying herself out into her pillows, Roxie had woken up at close to five the next morning and plunged her face into a sink filled with cold water in the bathroom across the hall. When she had returned to the room, the computer was still showing the 'Spencer' file in slideshow mode. Deciding against locking the file, just in case Papa became suspicious, Roxie had just flipped back to the work she was supposed to be doing and opened up a could of internet pages so he would think she had been entertaining herself all night.

Once she had gone through these motions and calmed herself slightly, Roxie realised that she had been irrational last night. She was still upset and she was still questioning her father's motives regarding her academic excellence, but thinking he had somehow concocted an elaborate set-up to play with her mind was ridiculous. If the computer hadn't frozen, she wouldn't even have known about Dr. Spencer Reid.

No, what was happening here was actually simplistic once all the complicated issues were stripped away: William Reid had been in a serious relationship from which he'd had a child, who by the looks of it had genius-level intelligence. This said relationship, he had abandoned for reason unknown, after which he had married her Mama and had four other children, from whom he concealed his previous relationship and child. She wondered if Mama knew – about the relationship or Dr. Spencer Reid – yet for some reason, Roxie found that unlikely. Mama was a very family-orientated woman; she remembered one argument she had overheard once between Mama and Aunt Rosemary regarding whether they should reserve a place at the family table for Elsa Brownlee. Rosemary wanted her at a guest table because she 'was not a true Wilcot', but Mama had argued that Uncle Emmet had made Elsa his daughter so she had every right to sit with her step-father and step-sister. She knew that, if Papa had told Mama about Dr. Spencer Reid, then Mama would have mentioned him as being a part of the family.

By the time the family were back home in Las Vegas, Roxie was feeling quite sick. Her family diagnosed it as motion sickness from the flight, so, whilst Mama organised unloading the suitcases and her siblings from the car into the house again, Papa guided her to her garden where she lay down under the shelter of Mama's strawberry bush. It was sweet, with a soft, fruity smell ripening in the warm summer breeze. She felt like a hurricane about to explode upon the peace of it all and rip everything to shred.

"Fucking Pandora's Box," she muttered to herself. She wished she hadn't looked at the rest of that file.

"What was that honey?" She turned around and spotted her Papa, holding a tall glass of lemon in water. There was a new softness to his features, smoothed out by the sun and the relaxation that came upon returning to your own home.

"Erm… I was just thinking of Pandora's box. You know… the myth?"

"Ah yes. The young woman who opened the forbidden box and all the evils of the world came out."

"Yes. Zeus wanted to punish Prometheus for bringing fire to the moral world so he asked Hephaestus to create the first woman from earth and water. She was given as a gift to Prometheus's brother, Epimetheus, even though he was warned not to receive her. After they were married, Pandora opened the box and released all the evils into world, including death," Roxie accepted the glass from William, folding her hands in her lap. "Don't you think its strange that the first women in both Greek and Christian mythology are sent as punishments for the men?"

"I would guess it was an extension of the misogynistic cultures of the time," Papa set down next to her and stretched a long leg out on the grass. "I'm not surprised you like studying Greek culture. I remember, one day when your Mama was pregnant with you I was reading _The Odyssey_ aloud to her. You starting kicking… nothing like you'd done before that was like a little prod. No, you went into full on marching mode and you did it for the rest of the reading. Eventually your mother asked me to never read _The Odyssey_ to her again whilst she was pregnant with you. As compensation, I finished the book for you the day you were born. I remember you smiling, cutest little small smile…" He paused for a moment, watching her gently, holding her hand delicately as if imagining she could still only curve her entire first around one of his knobbly fingers. To indulge him, she did just that with a gentle smile. "I knew then you were gonna be an amazing scholar. I was telling Saphya, right when you were in your crib, you were going to have an entire movement of American literature named after you."

"I think you might be getting a little ahead of yourself," Roxie mumbled, feeling a little less amazing. "I still have to even get into college."

"You should have a bit more confidence in yourself, sweetheart," he replied, squeezing her hand comfortingly, before dragging himself to his feet. "Do you want me to bring out your book?"

"Oh, no thank you – my head's still a little sore," Roxie mumbled, even more quietly. "I think I'll just rest out here till dinner."

"That's ok. How about I ask Mum to move dinner outside?"

"Sure," Roxie finished, watching him turn back towards the house, and then closed her eyes hoping she wouldn't start crying.

This was an impossible state of mind. How irrational was she being? Honestly! Her Papa had just told her the most beautiful story about how much he loved her and why he thought she would make an incredible scholar and here she was still thinking he was holding her up to Dr. Spencer Reid's standards. Everything was so confused.

"Hey Roxie!" someone shouted across the garden. Nikki, that was Nikki, she thought as she opened her eyes again.

"What, Nikki, I'm resting!"

"I just got the best news! You will not believe it!"

"What Nikki?"

"Come on, at least guess!"

"You have given me no clues to guess with and I have a headache, Nikki! What is it?"

"Oh, right, don't get moody! Schools closed for two weeks!"

"What?"

"Yeah! Whilst they were rewiring the science department there was an accident and they discovered this massive crack in one of the gas lines, which could have led to the entire school getting blown up…"

"I highly doubt…"

"Who cares what's true, I like the part where the school could blow up!" Nikki waved her comment away. "Anyway, they've closed the school for two weeks while they change the _entire_ pipeline and electrical wiring. This is awesome!"

"Yeah, its brilliant," Roxie smiled genuinely, taking some joy from her brother's enthusiasm.

"Mikey's already asked me if I fancy a gaming marathon over the next few days."

"A what?"

"Oh, its something we were planning over the summer holidays. We were thinking of doing a big three-day sleepover or something where we basically just play games and eat junk food. Only don't tell Mum and Dad that - they won't let me go if they think I'm not gonna go outside."

"Sounds like fun," she giggled, before sobering again. Two weeks was a decent amount of time, she thought, smiling slightly. Taking her phone out of her pocket, she pressed 7 for Marcella and waited for her to pick up.

"Hey, Roxie, how was Babylon?"

"Well nobody murdered anyone so there was that upside."

"I suppose so. Seriously though are you ok?"

"Well… erm… not really. Actually, I was hoping I could ask you a favour."


	10. Chapter 5 Part 3

**I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters on the show.**

Boston

Irony was a cruel fucking bitch, David thought with a snarl. He'd always dreamed of his boys sharing his dream with him, following in his footsteps as the proverb is so accurately put. Watching them on television, Fox news and the like, making masterpiece speeches with all the drama and flourish of an actor, pruning like peacocks, the finest bred peacocks, as he had groomed them.

Yet here they were. Pruning their own feather and spitting right in his face, slowly tearing his dream into shreds and drowning it in water to destroy it like melting snow. Edgar and Christopher, side by side, probably for the first time since they were children (they had always been such querulous when they were younger), destroying everything he had worked so hard to build.

"Of course I realise that due to a conflict of interest for obvious reasons," Edgar spoke with a firm confidence, well practiced and refined, "I will not be able to lead or participate in any regard to the investigation into Senator Wilcot and his staff regarding these serious allegations of corruption. Which is why I have left the oversee of these proceedings to my deputy, long-term colleague and personal friend, ASA Hortensia Thatchley."

"Mr. Wilcot, there have been some rumours circulating from the District Attorney's Office, that Judge Parllen was unwilling to sign the warrant, which lead to the seizing of over 85 incriminating files from Anderson, Michaels & Co. who have been working for your father for over ten years. What do you say to that?"

"I was not party to the meeting during which the warrant was signed. I cannot say whether Judge Parllen objected or what his reasons were if he did, only that the law evidently proved there was compelling reason to enforce it."

"There have also been accusations against your department. That yourself and Congressman Christopher Wilcot are using these corruption charges to disgrace your father in order to further your brother's ambition."

"Those are disgusting lies. Neither the Congressman nor myself are motivated by anything so base as greed or jealousy. In fact, to be quite candid, until a few days ago I fully supported the Senator against these proceedings that were being led by my department. When I was presented with certain evidence, however, which shall be presented in court when the date has been set, I was unable to continue such support of the Senator."

"Have you spoken with your father since you broke ties with him?"

"I have conversed with Senator Wilcot in the presence of his attorneys. Now, if you would excuse me, any further questions will have to be directed to ASA Thatchley."

"FUCK YOU!" David screamed at the TV, throwing the remote across the room, smashing half the ornaments on his bookshelf. He didn't really care about them anyway – they weren't even pretty. They just made his office look more delicate, to put people at ease with a little effeminacy as they stepped into his office. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! You little shits I gave you everything! EVERYTHING!"


	11. Chapter 6 Part 1

**I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters on the show. Sorry it took so long to upload, but this will probably how I update now.**

Quantico

"Are you feeling better, Pretty Boy?"

"I'm fine, Morgan," he said passively, not looking up from his reports. His fingers flicked nimbly across the report, his eyes following every detail across a pattern of flapping pictures and forms. "Don't try to slip anything into my files, I know your game."

"Kid you wound me!" Morgan teased playfully, but withdrew the file he had been steadily inching towards Reid's tray. "Are you coming to lunch anytime soon?"

"I just need to finish these reports."

"Come on, Reid, they'll still be there when you come back," Prentiss said, throwing her own aside for the moment, hoping he'd take example from her.

"What if we get a case this afternoon? Then we'll backlog even further."

"I just spoke to JJ and she doesn't think it's likely we're leaving any time soon," Morgan reassured him.

"Fine, just let me finish this report," Reid flipped over to the last page and made sure to scrawl his last few words in the columns before following Prentiss and Morgan to the elevator. "Does anyone know who's going to take JJ's job when she goes on maternity leave?"

"She says she's got something to cover us, but she's keeping pretty tight lipped about it all until she's sorted," Prentiss said.

"It probably is all under control. Otherwise she wouldn't be teasing us about it," Morgan waved it off.

"Well, she's doing a better job at keeping this from us than she did keeping Will from us," Reid admitted.

"Oh God, yeah, that was so blatantly obvious," Prentiss smirked.

"I remember her eyes would dilate when she'd answer the phone and she'd get that nervous tick in her hand that she gets whenever she's attracted to someone. I asked her once when we were at dinner if she'd met anyone, and when she said 'no' her heart rate increased and she avoided direct eye contact. I knew that she was involved in a relationship, most likely long distance since she was avoided explaining where she went during the weekends, but I wasn't aware it was Will until I saw her reaction to his presence in Miami."

Prentiss and Morgan stared at Reid. Eventually, Prentiss remarked, "We overheard her arranging a weekend in the break room and checked her call history when she wasn't looking. She had him on speed-dial too."

"Oh, well… wait, you guys snuck around her phone?"

"You profiled her," Morgan waggled a finger. "How about we all agree never to mention this again?"

"Yeah, lets do that."

"I second."

"Great. Where are we going for lunch? Is anyone else joining us?"

"No, Garcia's meeting Kevin and going for a Chinese," Prentiss replied. "Lets not gate-crash their date. Rossi and Hotch said they would join us in about fifteen minuets when they were finished outlining some details with Strauss for the student's visit."

"I thought everything was sorted on that front," Morgan replied disbelievingly. "We've signed all the damn forms accepting responsibility if by some miraculous accurate a light falls on top of them. We've rehearsed all the speeches and tied up all the nasty files. What else is there to do?"

"Strauss wants us to process a guest list so we can keep track of all thirty-four students walking in three days from now," Reid explained. "She's become a little paranoid that someone might try to break in using the student day, so everyone has name-tags, register and do regular headcount."

"Well, she didn't particularly want to do this day in the first place," Prentiss admitted. "This was an idea that came from above to get some good press for the Bureau."

"At least it'll be a break from chasing serial killers all over the country," Morgan replied.

"You mean our job?" Reid asked.

"Yeah that. Who wants Italian?"

Las Vegas

"Roxie, this is insane! You cannot do this!" Marcella ribbed her again, trying to slip her hand into one of the handles on her best friends suitcase, which was currently running behind her as she made her way to the luggage the line. It clattered noisily on the pavement outside the airport as Roxie jogged along. "I don't know how many more possible ways I can put this to you?"

"Well you've already covered financial risk, serial killers, kidnappers, police turning me back because I'm under sixteen…"

"You're being insufferable! So what you have some half-brother acing it at the FBI on the other side of the country! You don't even need to tell your dad! Make a phone call! Send an email…"

"Oh yeah, and if he doesn't know about me that'll be the most awkward conversation ever to have over the phone," Roxie scoffed, but couldn't help seeing the logic in her best friend's ranting. "I know you have a valid point and I know you're worried, but this feels right. This feels like the best way to do this, you know. I have to meet him in person."

"Ok, besides the insane risks to your personal safety and lying to yours and my parents, this single trip is costing nearly four hundred dollars, plus whatever amount of money you have to pay to get back home and wherever you decide to stay overnight. What if the first thing he does is call your parents and tell them exactly where you are?"

"Then I'll be grounded for the rest of my life in four days rather than a week," Roxie replied, withdrawing her passport from her bag. "I have my trust fund from Prababushka…"

"I think when she set that aside for you, it was to help when you go to college not run away across the country!"

"I'm not running away!"

"Oh yeah! Prove it! Walk back home right now, tell you Dad you know about your half-brother and ask him why he never mentioned him!"

"No! I'm not running away, I'm running toward something! You don't understand."

"Just because your Dad kept a secret from you doesn't mean you should be running away. I've got secrets from my parents and God knows what they did. Maybe there's a reason he never said anything. Maybe they had some massive fallout years ago and he didn't feel comfortable mentioning him, because he knew you would want to meet him."

Roxie stopped walking straight for a moment, and paused to look at her friend. "I have considered that. But, at this point, I have so many questions and I don't know if I can trust him to answer them." Settling her bag on the ground for a moment, Roxie knelt down and unzipped it carefully, fishing for a few seconds before pulling out a few folders and opening them at random until she found the right ones. Hesitating a moment longer, she then passed them to Marcella. "After I called you and you told me to find out more before I made a decision, I waited until the next day when Papa and Mama went to work. Then I looked around Papa's office – I figured, that's his private space so if there's anything else then it would all be in there right? Well, I found a lot, He'd printed off all the photographs and the articles in some of the folders – they were tucked away behind some of the old photo albums. But these were in one of his desk drawers, and I… well… this first one here," Roxie tapped the first file, prompting Marcella to open it, "contains all the family documents: copies of marriage, birth and death certificates. Turns out that my half-brother's mother, Diana… she was also his wife and I know he's lied about that."

"How?"

"I remember him telling a story at a family dinner party a few years ago, about he met my Mama. He said he was a 'lonely old bachelor' until he met her, and she convinced him to 'settle into family life'. Well, it turns out that, as well as lying about the fact that he had been married before and had a family, he still did when he started dating Mama," Roxie sniffed angrily, turning a few pages to point out a divorce certificate. "Papa and Diana married on 21st April 1976 and they divorced on 15th February 1990. Mama and Papa have told us for years that they arranged their wedding date on the second anniversary of the day they first met, which was on the 17th October 1989."

"Oh sweetie," Marcella's face twisted into a pained expression. "I'm… I'm sorry…"

"You don't have to, you didn't know, Marcella," Roxie twitched slightly, not looking her friend in the eyes. "Mama and Papa did say that, though they weren't exactly serious for the first couple of months, they did spend the whole of Christmas together and that's when they started to see one another more seriously. The divorce papers in that file too, I read them – there's only one draft, they're signed uncontested and the bill for the lawyers all suggest the divorce was resolved quickly and was not dragged out for two or even five months. He lied to both of them – Mama and Diana – for that long. Then there's what's in the other one…"

Roxie took the open file from Marcella and tapped the other one lightly, turning away so she wouldn't have to look at it again. This one marked all the test scores of William Reid's children against one another, with annotations about how she and her siblings could do better to bring their grades up. Private tutoring, extra reading, after-school clubs… every suggestion had been thought of and suggested to them to bring their perfect grades up from A and B grades to 100%. It had been the confirmation of her worst fears – her father was holding them up to a standard they hadn't known existed. He'd burned his bridges with the academically perfect son who was in high school before he was ten-years-old, and when his next four didn't follow in those footsteps he tried to shove their feet into those shoes. Even before they were in school, he'd

"He's been keeping a fucking score?" Marcella sneered. "Okay, honey, I get it. I'm really sorry."

"Why, you weren't the asshole who lied to us for eighteen years?" Roxie stuttered, taking the files back and zipping them up again in her suitcase. "I just… I don't feel like I can trust anything he says regarding this anymore. Is that crazy?"

"No, honey, it's not. Maybe it's not what I would do, but I'm not gonna stop you," Marcella threw her hands into her hair and dragged it down. "Urgh! Go, I'll support you and not tell your parents your gone. Just please, call me everyday so we can have a believable story together and so that I know you've not been kidnapped by Jack the Ripper."

"Jack the Ripper has been dead for…"

"I know he's been dead for a hundred and fifty years, it's a figure of speech!" Marcella half-yelled, causing Roxie to jump. Immediately regretting her actions, Marcella mumbled an embarrassed apology and leaned over to hug her best friend. "Oh God please be careful. Call me when you land in Washington and when you get to Quantico."


	12. Chapter 6 Part 2

**I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters on the show.**

Quantico

The room she had booked herself into smelt like sour milk, but she supposed it was better than the one she changed from which had mould all over the bathroom. It had been a long nine-hour journey through the airports and her neck was beginning to ache as the bags pulled on her arms and shoulders. It wasn't even the clothes that were so heavy inside the suitcase, but the massive files she had printed photocopied from Papa's office. She had to praise him for his meticulousness: all the family documents from both his marriages – marriage certificates, birth certificates, mortgage papers, health insurance, school report cards, job contracts and (in the case of his first marriage) divorce papers. At least he didn't have to spend hours unravelling a literal mess as well as a metaphorical one.

Taking out her smart phone, she connected to the internet and opened up the online newsletter she had been browsing when she had been researching the FBI. It hadn't been on the Bureau's main website, but in the Academy newsletter it had announced that the Behavioural Analysis Unit were running an induction day for criminology students. Currently, she was debating the idea of joining the group in hopes of glimpsing how Dr. Spencer Reid operated in a work environment, but she was plagued with the risks that if she was caught she might not be able to see him. The risk would likely be high – the students were definitely going to be older than her and all from the same university so she would definitely stick out like a sore thumb. Especially if they did a roster, which they just might given the secure nature of the facility.

After contemplating the problem whilst worrying at her teeth with her nails for another two hours, she rolled onto the bed and texted Marcella: _Soz I didn't send 2 hrs ago. Am at hostel._ Afterwards, she freshened up in the bathroom, changed into her pyjamas and when she got back to the bed, her phone was lit up with a response: _At least u did._ _J_ _How's the ritz?_

 _Smells like cats piss but I live. Hv ma and pa called?_

 _No. tell them we hd pizza. Good sleepover food. R u cing him 2morrow?_

 _Don't know. Criminology student tour BAU 2morrow. Don't know if I should gate-crash._

 _Go. Psych him up_

 _Could get in trouble if sneak in._

 _Go c him be4 he knows who u r. u can get measure._

 _I might not c him if im under arrest._

 _U could learn something interesting bout him and fbi. GO!_

Every time she thought of a million different reasons why she shouldn't do something stupid, Marcella came exploding in with one very bad reason why she should do it and Roxie ended up doing it anyway.

Having disposed of all his connections to his father, Reid was finally able to get a good nights sleep in preparation for this induction day. Usually they took their work to the universities to be presented there, but today was going to be an exception for these students. They were getting a special tour of the BAU, which included some of their computer and science labs they had onsite, as well as their offices. When they were finished with the tour, conducted principally by Rossi, they would have a presentation with Reid, Morgan and Prentiss leading the charge.

They had already decided in advance to talk about Karl Arnold, The Carnados and The Footpath Killer. They would present the three different profiles to the students, mark the specific differences between the profiles and how their work led to the killers capture. It had been Reid's idea to offer the student's the opportunity to examine aspects of the crime scenes from the photographs themselves and allow them to play their own deductions.

"What do you guys want to do after work tonight? I'm thinking about grabbing a burger," Morgan asked.

"I'm up for that," Prentiss replied.

"Yeah sure," Reid agreed too, downing the last of his coffee and shuffling some papers around so his desk looked presentable. It seemed rude to invite strangers even into his workspace whilst it was untidy. "Are we going to go back to that place with the waitress that flirts with you?"

"That sounds appealing," Morgan smirked. "I might consider that an option as to where we grab our burger."

"How very open-minded of you," Prentiss rolled her eyes and then straightened a little, smiling. Following her line of sight, Reid noticed that Rossi was leading the students into the bullpen, who seemed to be laughing at a joke he'd told.

"… and this is the bullpen where we all work, where I shall be handing you off to Agent's Morgan, Prentiss and Reid," Rossi introduced them all with a wave of his hand. "They will be conducting the rest of this tour."

They started off with describing their daily routines – paperwork, how the cases were chosen by the BAU and the requirements of their jobs – then they brought the focus back to the students and how they could use their degrees to apply for the BAU. When Reid mentioned how they had waived the age limits and required years of experience so he could be accepted, the reactions were mixed. Most looked impressed, but a decent few were disdainful and even jealous. One girl in particular flashed him a broad smile, to which Reid blushed.

"Are you some kind of genius or something?" she asked.

"I don't believe genius can be measured, but I do have an eidetic memory, and IQ of 187 and can read…"

"He's a genius," Morgan finished for him, with a teasing smile. Reid joined in the laughter with his colleague and a few of the students. Glancing back at the girl, he noticed she was smiling too. "Are there any other questions about how to apply to the FBI?"

When the last few questions had been addressed, the group decided to move towards the files they had prepared to show to the students. As they did, Reid noticed that a few clusters of friends the students had bound themselves in were shooting the girl who had smiled at him, several odd looks. Now that he was looking at her more closely, the bone structures of her face and hands seemed less developed and she was certainly shorter in stature than the others. At first, he thought she might simply have been small, but now he suspected she might have been younger than the other students. Maybe she had gone to university early like he had.

After leading the students to the conference room where they had the profiles from the killers set up. Rossi had already warned the students about what they were going to be doing towards the end of the tour and if they wanted to wait outside, they could, but, not that they were surprised, all of them walked in. A few of them looked a little queasy, including the girl, but they steeled themselves very well.

"Okay, the purpose of this exercise is for you to examine the crime scene photos and evidence presented in these three cases, and to tell us what you would discern from these profiles," Morgan explained. "You can confer with your classmates if you wish or work on your own for a while. Feel free to ask questions."

Watching their reactions, the agents monitored the students as they examined the crime scenes, glad that there was no immaturity in their examinations. Sometimes, during lectures, there would be a few distasteful comments from the audience, but today there did not seem to be anyone like that here. If anything, they seemed rather hesitant, but human curiosity quickly got the better of their queasiness. Reid often wondered whether it was simply their criminological fascination or something more morbid within them that drew their eyes of the photographs. He sincerely hoped it was the former.

After a few moments, everyone except the girl had approached the photographs and begun to analyse them. Unlike the rest of them, she hadn't dived into anything, which Reid had thought she would have if she had been a bit like him. Instead, she looked rather queasy and unwilling to approach any of them. Rather, she seemed for focused on adjusting her large glasses on the bridge of her nose, as if she were trying to find an angle where they could blur what was in front of her.

"Are you ok, Miss?" he asked pensively, making her jump.

"Oh, yes I'm fine… Agent Reid," she replied, her voice slightly strained at the last part. Her voice faltered and she shifted slightly towards the photographs, selecting a few of the agent's notes of the crime scenes rather than the actual photographs.

Shrugging, Reid wandered back over to some students comparing the two crime scenes and listened to their suppositions, making some rather lengthy corrections that they did not seem to thoroughly appreciate. This continued for another fifteen minuets, before Erin Strauss walked in with two members of security.

"Ah, erm… hello Ma'am," Morgan faltered for a moment, and then cleared his throat to gain the student's attention. "Guys this is our Section Chief, Erin Strauss. Chief Strauss these are the students from the university."

"Most of them are the students from the university, Agent Morgan," Strauss sneered with distaste, surveying the students with narrowed eyes. "One of them is not: I didn't recognise her name nor her photograph from the list sent to me by the reception. Ah, there she is," Strauss snapped pointing towards the girl Reid had noticed earlier. Glancing back towards her now, he noticed her eyes were wide and she seemed to be having trouble both swallowing and holding onto her backpack over her shoulder. "Take her to the interview room until we can find out who she really is."

"No, wait," the girl stammered quickly, shuffling to try and avoid the guards as they advanced upon her. "Look! I admit I lied to get in, but I needed to speak with Agent Reid!"

"Security, will you please hurry," Strauss reminded them harshly when they seemed hesitant at manhandling a teenage girl.

"Wait! Wait!" The girl seemed rather frantic now as they began to take her out the door. "Agent Reid! Please! I have to speak with you! I'm sorry, I…!"

Reid watched stoically as she was removed from the room. Now that she was speaking a little louder, he noticed how the tones of her voice had not fully developed, further indicating his earlier estimation of her youth. He felt quite bad for her – most likely she was an ambitious high school kid that wanted to mingle with the university kids and wanted speak with someone who went to university early.

"Go on, Reid, we have this covered," Prentiss whispered under her breath, taking advantage of everyone's distraction. "See what that's all about."

"Thank-you," he replied quickly before he could change his mind. Following Strauss and the girl out the room, he hurried to catch up with them just as they were exiting the bullpen. Quite a few of his colleague's attention had been attracted towards the girl sobbing as the security manhandled her gently through the bullpen. He reached them just after the glass doors, letting them fall shut behind him. "Excuse me, Chief Strauss."

"Agent Reid, you needn't concern yourself with this."

"Um… it might be prudent to hear what she has to say to me."

Strauss looked at the girl again, and then angled herself so she couldn't see her face and spoke a little softer. "Look, Agent Reid, she's going to get into more trouble with her parents than she will with me. I'm just scaring her so she knows not to break the rules again."

"Dr. Spencer Reid," the girl squeaked, bringing Reid's attention back towards her. He was pretty sure none of his friends had given his first name to the students. "I really need to speak with you! It's very important!"

"Young lady…" Strauss tried to interrupt again, but this time the girl cut across her.

"Your father's name is William Reid, right? You grew up in Las Vegas?"

Reid froze, that cold feeling in his stomach worrying its way up his throat again, until it nearly tightened his windpipe. He brought his fingers together, and caught them in a tight grip in order to try and stop himself from shaking. "Yes, he is and I did. How do you know that?" he asked, as her eyes grew wide with excitement ad she began fumbling with the zip on her bag. One of the security guys caught her wrist for a moment, and she shrieked.

With a shake of his head, Reid took the backpack from the girl. "What's in here?"

"My Papa's family files: he documented everything about us," she mumbled, causing Reid to frown. Taking her phone from her pocket, she opened it and brought a photograph to her screen to show him. When he looked at the screen, Reid thought that the cold could suffocate him with how tightly it was squeezing his throat. It was his father, smiling broadly with a baseball cap on his head and an arm looped around a younger version of this girl in front of him. "William Reid is my father too. My name is Roxana Aleksandra Reid."


	13. Chapter 7 Part 1

**Hello, sorry I haven't updated in a really long time, but I have been so busy since I started work. Anyway, I hope you like it and as** **usual, I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters from the show.**

Boston

Joy sat across from Cecilia with a cruelly sour expression upon her face, which failed to achieve its optimum effect since it was dampened by her rolling eyes and pungent drool. If she had been anyone else, Cecelia might have done what she was about to threaten to do sooner, but she respected her late sister too much for that.

"So, _Great-Aunt_ Cecilia," Joy sneered. "Why have I been summoned to thy holy presence?"

"Very mature, Joy," Cecilia narrowed her eyes. "You know why you're here."

"Really?"

Sensing she was going to be difficult, Cecilia decided to counter her anger with bluntness. "You've become addicted to alcohol, Joy. Does it need more explanation than that?"

"I am not fucking addicted!" Joy nearly screamed. "Everyone tells me that I am, but I am not! Hey, I don't want or need fucking advice from any of you! Not my father! Not Adam! Especially not you with your fucking butlers and psycho… Urgh!" Joy retched in the middle of her rant and threw the contents of her stomach onto the table. Scrunching up her entire body, Cecilia drew back quickly from the table with excellent grace. Trying not to breathe in the noxious fumes emitting from Joy's body, she called out for her maids and asked one of them to clean the kitchen, whilst another dragged Joy to another table and fetched a bowl for her.

As she watched this young woman, a former prime candidate for a doctorate, destroy herself, Cecilia nearly collapsed in pity for her. Then she remembered why exactly she had called Joy here – if it were just this woman she would accept her decision to leave her in peace from their affairs. Yet, it was not just Joy at concern here.

"Joy, you must stop lying to me and you must stop lying to yourself," Cecilia hissed fiercely. "You are a drunk and you have been ever since your husband died. I am very sorry for it, he was a lovely man who treated you well. You have all the right in the world to be upset."

"Fuck you…"

"But Pius would not want this! What about Mary?"

"What? You don't talk fuck all about my daughter!"

"Who looks after her when you leave her alone or when your passed out on the kitchen floor? Mary is still a child. She cannot look after herself," Cecelia swallowed heavily, feeling rather heavy at what she was about to do. "If you do not stop drinking and get yourself into rehab, I will take her into my care. Or have your father or Adam take her in."

"What? Fuck! No! No! You won't take Mary! You can't take Mary!"

"I don't want to, Joy! I really don't want to!"

"You have no right! No right!"

"Joy you are not taking care of your daughter! Mary is eight years old! I know you heave her alone at night without a babysitter! I know she waits outside her school gates for over an hour waiting to be picked up! Remember those times you called Adam because you thought she'd been kidnapped, but she'd walked six blocks home!"

"Fuck you!"

"Joy! Listen to me!" Cecilia screamed, wretchedly. Everyone in the room fell silent as the glasses ringing on the countertop subsided. Her throat rubbed raw, Cecilia scratched at it for a few seconds, then resumed her composure. "Joy, I am begging you. Please, get some help. Because I love you so much and because Adam is a very good uncle to look after Mary at beck-and-call, I have not alerting child services regarding Joy yet. But make no mistake, my dear, I will not let you put that baby's life at risk because you are too irresponsible to face up to your problems. So you throw every drop of alcohol out of your house by tomorrow and sign up to an AA meeting or I will take Mary away from you. Consider this my ultimatum." Cecilia stood up swiftly, surprisingly steady for her age. Perhaps it was her anger keeping her so composed. "I have already asked Adam to watch Mary for tonight. You can sober up in one of my guest bedrooms, then pick her up in the morning."


	14. Chapter 7 Part 2

Quantico

Half an hour later and Reid's head was still spinning, his prized eidetic memory short-circuiting like haywire. In the minuets following the girl's revelations he had shuffled her quietly into a small, generally unused conference room along the main corridor and asked Strauss not to say anything. He had made sure she was comfortable then immediately ran to Garcia.

"Hey Reid," she smiled brightly as he walked in. "Did one of those kids mess with a computer?"

"What? Oh… erm… no, actually, I just," Reid hesitated, twisting the files in his hands. "Could you erm… do something for me and keep it between us?"

At the quiet tones in Reid's voice, Garcia swivelled in her chair, immediately unnerved by how pale he looked. He had that faltering look in his eyes, restlessly swivelling between the papers in front of him, his feet and Garcia. "What wrong?"

"Um… I… could you run some names for me?"

"Whatever you need, G-man," Garcia smiled, trying to put him more at ease. "What are the names?"

"Roxana Aleksandra Reid – she lives in Las Vegas Nevada."

"Reid?" Garcia's eyes bugged wider than tea saucers behind her glasses. "Roxana Aleksandra _Reid_? Is she a relative?"

"I'm not sure yet. Could you please run it? And its Aleksandra spelt with a 'ks' not an 'x'. She made that very clear," Reid frowned in confusion as she remembered how insistent the girl had been on that front. Then she'd gone off on a tangent about the Russian variations of English names and phrases for about five minuets, starting off in a nervous ramble but gradually evolving into full-blown lecture until Reid stopped her with an offer for ice water. There was a refreshing, bright look in her eyes behind the square glasses that reminded Reid frighteningly of himself. That and their shared hair, eye and pale colouring were enough to nearly give him a fit. He had tried reciting statistics of the likelihood intelligence, lighten brown hair, small noses and behavioural traits could be shared between half-siblings raised in separate households, but this failed to calm his nerves.

While he was going through these thought processes, Garcia had turned to her keyboard and brought up everything she could on the girl. Unsurprisingly, there was only one girl in Las Vegas called Roxana Aleksandra Reid who spelt her name with a "ks" not an "x". "Here's a picture from her MySpace page: is that her?"

"Yes," Reid thought, scrutinising the photograph probably taken at a fairground judging by the Ferris wheel peeking into the background. There was another girl trying to catch a piggy-back from her in the picture – another blonde girl the same age.

"What do you want to know about her?"

"As much as you can find."

"Okay, well, she was born in Las Vegas, Aril 24th 1993 to… um…" Garcia paused for a moment, studying Reid's face before continuing, "to William John Reid and Dr. Sapphire Antonya Reid, nee Wilcot. As a child she was registered by her parents at several Russian Orthodox social groups that included religious meetings, playgroups, art classes, reading classes, dancing and ice-skating. According to her academic record she has won several spelling bees and academic decathlons mostly centring around the fields of literature and humanities. Apart from that though, she doesn't seem to have much of an online record – she has a single MySpace account set up last year that she rarely updates and her cell records suggest she has a very small, but close, circle of friends."

"What about her family?" Reid replied tightly.

"Reid, what is going…?"

"Garcia, just…" Reid snapped, then calmed himself. He wasn't going to get anywhere by having a panic attack. "I'm sorry, please can you just tell me about her family."

"Ok," she mumbled, then straightened up and continued. "Father, William Reid, born 1951 and mother, Dr. Sapphire Wilcot, born 1969. They married on 28th September 1991 at a small church in Boston and they have both lived in Las Vegas all of their married life. Mother teaches biology at the local university, same one she got her bachelors and doctorate at, but she was born in New York. She practices Russian Orthodoxy, judging by her frequent donations to the local church and her active participations in its fundraising activities. Father works as a lawyer for Wieder, Kirschenbaum and Moore and was born in Las Vegas, but studied law at Columbia. They have three other children, all younger than Roxana enrolled in similar activities, names Nikolai, Annabella and Sacha. Hmm… I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that the mother has some Russian heritage."

"What else do we know about the father?"

"Reid…."

"Garcia please," Reid begged, giving her a look that flickered between stern and desperate.

"Okay," she mumbled, and brought up what she had deliberately not poked into. "It appears his marriage to Sapphire Wilcot was his second one – he married Dr. Diana Reid, 1976 and he lived with her in Las Vegas, where they had a son… um… you, in 1980. They filed for divorce in early 1990." Garcia shut off everything she had just found and jumped out of her seat. "Reid… I'm so sorry."

"Its ok, Garcia," Reid spoke so quietly she could barely hear him. "It's not your fault."

In her usual fashion, Garcia threw her arms around Reid and pulled him into a tight hug, which he reciprocated after a few moment. They remained silent and secure there for a few moments, her steadying him while he hovered between that tightrope of freezing and hysterics. Eventually, he seemed to relax enough to a point where Garcia was sure he wouldn't break down. "Are you feeling better?"

"A bit."

"Why… why are you asking about all this anyway?"

"Because… um," Reid contemplated keeping it to himself for a few more moments, then decided against it. "Because Roxie is here, in one of the smaller meeting rooms right now. She just… came in with the students and walked around with them all afternoon. Then Strauss caught her and she told me who she was."

"Reid, oh my God…"

"The rest of the team doesn't know yet," he interjected quickly. "Could you, please not tell them until I do?"

"Of course, of course," she stammered. "What do you want me to do?"

"Um, right now, could you… just… be there?"

"Of course. I'll take them all out of the office when the students leave. You can have it all to yourself."

"Thank you." Reid smiled steadily, trying to relax his breathing. "I… err… guess I better go and talk to her now."

Without another word, Reid left Garcia in her room and went back to find Roxie in the conference room, checking his watch as he did so. He'd left her alone for nearly half and hour, waiting for him to come back. _She must be terrified._ He remembered being alone, having the rug ripped out from underneath him when he was her age and having no one close that he could rely on. The difference seemed to be that she had run away from their father, whilst he had run away from him.

 _Why is she here? What could she possibly want from me?_

It was safe to assume that William had not told her about him and she had had to find out the truth for herself. Otherwise he would be here with her and she wouldn't need to sneak into the FBI Headquarters. Which also probably meant neither he nor her mother didn't know she was here. No parent would allow their child to do something so stupid, unless they were either equally so or neglectful.


	15. Chapter 7 Part 3

Pausing only to grab a tall glass of iced water from the break room, Reid half-ran back to the room he'd left her in, then found himself frozen once more outside the door. Peering through the cracks in the blinds, he stared at her. Although a lot of people had said when he was younger that he'd looked a lot like his father, as he'd grown older, he had thought about how he'd begun to look more like his mother. Of course, he had his father's eyes and colouring but the sharp, yet delicate structure of his face and stature were almost entirely owed to his mother. Yet it seemed his half-sister had inherited those exact same traits, including a sophisticated and creative intelligence Reid had always thought was purely his mother within him.

Taking a deep breath, Reid opened the door, causing the poor girl to jump out of her seat. She'd put away all the files he had taken from the bag and laid out in front of her again when he left. Rather, she was threading her fingers through one another; twisting them so fiercely Reid was surprised she hadn't broken them already. "I brought you some water."

"Thank you," she mumbled, almost as quiet as he was. When he settled the water down on the counter, she snatched it up almost immediately and gulped down about half of it. "Have you been checking up on who I am?"

"Yes," he admitted, half-ashamed.

"I understand why you would have had to do that," she quirked a small smile, peering through her thick glasses. "I did break into the FBI after all."

"That was very stupid of you," he felt it his duty to both admonish her and praise her when her smile dulled. "But also rather intelligent. We'll have to make sure we increase our security for the next visits we arrange."

"I'm flattered," Roxie smirked at his confused expression. "What? Not every girl gets the change to rattle the FBI."

"I err… wouldn't make a habit of it if I were you." Despite how logic dictated he should respond to her break in, Reid couldn't help but be impressed. Apart from her frantic confusion towards the end, she seemed to have remained calm throughout the entire event. "Look, Roxana…"

"Roxie," she said, quickly. "Everyone calls me 'Roxie'. No one calls me 'Roxana'."

"Ok, Roxie," he spoke slowly. "Er… why did you come here?"

Her smile vanished quickly, and she took another long gulp of water. "I… I didn't even know about you until about a week ago. I found your file on Papa's computer when I was editing some photographs."

"My file?"

"I'd never seen it before, and I found it by mistake. It was a locked file under my Papa's documents, but I think he'd forgotten he'd left it unlocked. It had, basically, everything about you. Newspaper clippings, birth certificates, photographs and school reports."

Reid's stomach twisted a little, knowing his father had been checking up on him all these years. He wasn't happy or relieved like he thought he might be when he learned his father had kept a continuous interest in him all these years. More like disgusted. Too cowardly to come and knock on his door, instead he'd tucked Reid away in some little corner on his laptop and desk drawer where his new family wouldn't find them.

"I really wanted to know more," Roxie mumbled. "But I didn't want to ask him – I knew he'd be reluctant. After all he'd…" She halted for a moment, looking unsure as to what her next words would be, but Reid just waved her on. He truly was on the verge of not caring anymore. "Well, I… I got into his office when my parents weren't home and looked around. I then found all these files… where…" she paused for a moment, words catching in her throat, looking almost traumatised by what she was about to say next. "He'd been comparing us to you. I knew he always had high ambitions for us – he always pushed us academically – he put us on a vigorous reading schedule, introduced us to music and got us into all these clubs. But he was trying to make us into another you."

Roxie's face had creased wretchedly, and she looked on the verge of tears. Unable to look at Reid, she turned away and tried to hide her face against her shoulder and behind a long fringe of hair. "I also found out your parents had been married. You know he divorced her four months after he met Mama. Two of those months they were seriously dating. He cheated on her. I don't know if he ever told her about you, but I don't think he did. Mama's a very family person. She wouldn't leave you out of the picture. Or your mother."

Reid felt a little sick watching the poor girl cry. Reaching into his pocket for some tissues, he took some out of the pack and slid them across the table. Carefully, she took them and wiped her cheeks and eyes under her glasses. "I'm sorry…"

"No, Roxie, none of this is your fault," Reid said quickly. "It's his. He's the one who made mistakes."

Looking back up at him, Roxie cast a weak smile for a second, before ducking her head again and draining the glass. Her fingertips dripped from the condensation gathering around the rim. "Can I ask… what happened between you and Papa?" he spoke warily. "I know it might not be pleasant…"

"It's not pleasant," Reid said hardly, but softened his voice deliberately when Roxie's eyes began pooling again. Normally, he'd divert this conversation away in another direction unless Morgan had given him some drinks first, but the desperation that was squirming inside the poor girl was tragic to watch. "Up until I was six we were good. I mean, my mum was… ill but those days she was stable."

"Stable?"

"My mum's a paranoid schizophrenic," he said quickly, watching Roxie's eyes widen in the way that most people's did when he told them about her. "She was good at keeping on her meds and she didn't have many episodes. It was unusual when she did. Then when I turned seven, everything… didn't change overnight, but went downhill. She had more episodes and they changed her medication, but they had really bad side effects. It affected her concentration really badly and slowed down her brain. She was a teacher at the local university so this was really bad for her – she kept going off the pills for days at a time so she could continue teaching people. But sometimes when she was off them she'd forget to take them again and none of the doctors would prescribe her anything else." Reid had never told anyone this part about his mother's descent before, much less about how it contributed to his parent's separation. Divorce, he reminded himself, his parents were divorced. Strange how she had never told him about that. Maybe she'd just forgotten.

"Dad… honestly, he did try to help her for those final two years we were together. He looked after her and me, but I could see how it affected him. Most nights he hardly slept I think out of pure worry for her more than anything else," he twitched uncomfortably. "I remember his career suffered – he'd be working erratic hours in his office and home. I think, he came to resent her as someone who held him back and… maybe even me too." Looking up from his hands, he saw Roxie watching him with her mouth agape. He realised how clinical he must have sounded. It had always helped him in the past whenever he did speak about him. "He left a few months after I turned nine. I never saw him again."

"Son of a bitch," Roxie breathed quietly, too shocked to even be troubled over her use of profanities. "What… he… I don't understand… why would he…?"

"Because he couldn't handle it, Roxie," Reid said simply. "He didn't want us anymore when we turned too much for him to handle so he left. It's nothing more simple than that."

Too exhausted to take this in much longer, Roxie groaned and slumped back into her chair, energy drained from her body. Running a hand over her eyes, she worked her way through a yawn, whilst Reid watched her sadly. A suddenly feeling of self-disgust overwhelmed him at making her so upset. "Look, I'm sorry."

"Why?" Roxie looked up at him, slightly confused. "You said it yourself. He made the mistakes, not us." She flashed him a quick, genuine smile, before looking away again and sighing. "God this is one big pile of shit isn't it?

"It really is," Reid smiled gently. "Did you, imagine this meeting would be going like this?"

"I don't know what I imagined it would go like," she shrugged. "I just thought it would go as it would."

"You're brave," Reid remarked quickly. "Flying halfway across the country to meet a half-brother you've never met, knowing nothing except your father has never spoken to him since he was ten."

"I needed to meet you," Roxie said simply. "I needed to heart what really happened from you and not from him. I couldn't trust him after I found all that out."

"That seemed fair. I'm sure you have more questions than that though," he asked carefully, feeling a little warmer when she smiled.

"I think I did want a chance to get to know you better," Roxie smiled. "Though perhaps in a less… interrogatory environment."

"Sounds good," he croaked, twining his hands together to try and hide the fact that they were sweating. "I… err… have to finish work, but we can go out to dinner tonight? You can wait here if you like."

"Thanks, but, if it's okay with you I'd prefer to get back to my motel. I'd rather not spend more time in here than I had to," Roxie flashed him a tight, but knowing smile, which Reid had to bite back a grin at. "Plus, I kind of want to change."

"Ok. Tell me your address and I'll pick you and your stuff up before six. I'll get out of work early so I can take you back."

"Ok… wait... my stuff?" Roxie looked at him oddly. "Why will you be picking up my stuff?"

"Because I can calculate the likelihood of crime at any motel rate in this city within five minuets and it will worry me really badly if I don't have you at my house where I can make sure you aren't being attacked. And since your stupid enough to break into the FBI and get caught I can calculate an extra risk factor in there too," Reid grinned at her outraged expression. She couldn't seem to get a single protest out. "I am a genius, Roxie.


End file.
